Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

The cleaners are coming one by one; you don’t even want to let them start. They are knocking now upon your door, they measure the room, they know the score. They’re mopping up the butcher’s floor of your broken little hearts.

O Children – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

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When she thinks about him, she thinks about them and all she sees is children. A boy and a girl and her pale skin against his cheek, pulling at each other's hair, laughing, loud, like Nick and Niamh on court benches - school benches - and the autumn leaves scattered around their feet. Well, she’s old, now, and wise. The weight of the air digs into her shoulders and it’s hard to sit up straight, stare into the reflection of her blue eyes and not see ghosts.

A few days ago, Sean was on trial and Martha sat there in a courtroom, wig sitting straight over her head, and thought this was what fear - actual crippling fear – was meant to feel like. Something like danger and freedom crossing paths, like fingers intertwined, like someone holding you back. When she was a kid, her family took the boat to Ireland, once: cliffs a hundred metres high and the sky dark above them, shivers running down her spine, thinking that she’d reached the end of the world. That’s what this all feels like, too, when she thinks about it. The end of the fucking world.

. 

At the time, Martha’s father used to read her stories. Late at night, tucked under the covers in her pyjamas with her hair pulled back in a tight braid behind her head; he’d tell the tales of boys going on adventures and fighting for things that they believed in, of Robin Hood and Peter Pevensie, and Martha would listen, quietly, her eyes wide open, heart beating fast in her chest.

‘You think I can do that, too?’ she remembers asking, once, as he turned off the lights.

He smiled, dropped a kiss to her forehead. ‘Of course.’

They didn’t have Harry Potter, back then, and Martha was never one for comics, but she remembers being fascinated with narratives of foreign lands and leaving home to explore a world she didn’t know existed. Her dreams used to be big: high buildings and cars rushing past, tube stations, and thousand-page novels that lulled her to sleep. Recently, her dreams got smaller: four walls, metal detectors. ‘For the first time in twenty years, I feel homesick,’ she told Sean.

Now, Martha Costello is an animal terrified of fireworks, dreams of tiny, comfy, secluded spaces that shelter her from the wolves. Dreams of home, of quiet nights watching football on the telly, nasty, cold rain tapping against the window while a fire burns inside.

“Marth,” a voice whispers, next to her. The last syllable of her name dies against the person’s lips; she hums, smiles, feels a familiar touch against her shoulder. In front of her eyes, she sees grass, wild in a field, and whiskey in a tumbler, neat. Her dad’s gaze set on hers from the other side of the room. They sit on a bench by the river, watch the water run below their feet: the flow is calm, soothing, nothing like the Thames, and he looks young, like he did when she was a kid, holding her hand to cross the street.

The sun is high in the sky, lighting overexposed.

“Martha, wake up.”

Her eyes open to harsh, neon lights, bright and ugly above her. Her father’s dead, she remembers as she sits up, stretches on a chair. Reality stings like salt on her wounds: she’s at the hospital, waiting on Billy, and Clive is the one standing in front of her, hand awkwardly dropping to his side, yearning brushing against her skin. He points at someone in a white coat by a door next to a sign that reads: no entry – medical personnel only.

“They want to talk to you,” he adds, looks away.

Martha’s quiet when she nods, but can’t bring herself to move. Sighs, closes her eyes. Ultimately, she thinks Clive knows that she stayed for Billy.

.

It’s a point that she wants to make. A point to reaffirm because it’s an important point, a point that explains, in her brain, her desire to function like a recluse, without talking to or interacting with anybody within the vicinity. If it were up to Martha, right now, she would choose to fade into the wall, be part of the fixtures, disappear from view; if it were up to her, really, she wouldn’t be here at all. But, she stayed. Not for Chambers, or Mickey Joy, or even Sean. Billy. It’s always been about Billy.

In hindsight, for a moment or two, Clive probably thought that she stayed for him. If anything, he’s the one who found her, in the end. Went up towards Fleet Street while she ran down to the river but in the end, he won their game of hide and seek. She remembers the dusk outside, that summer light that fades into midnight and already rises after three. Clouds tinted pink, behind Clive’s apartment building. Of all the places he’d looked, of all the hours he’d spent scouring London, he came home holding his phone in one hand and his keys in the other to find her standing there on the pavement as he closed the door to his taxi, heard the car speed off in the opposite direction. There was a look on his face, a look that she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget, and she remembers the way his voice shook when he spoke her name.

‘Marth?’

‘Where’s Billy?’

Billy, Billy, Billy. The rushing cars, the sirens. In the seconds that the passage of the bus had afforded her, a few hours before, she’d made a spur of the moment decision to disappear, stepped over the stone railing and onto the pier below, scratched her knees on the ground and wondered if mud and dirt really were what freedom was supposed to taste like. Moments later, Martha was on a city cruise boat filled with tourists when she saw the ambulance on the quays, stood there, motionless, paralysed with fear and ego, and an inability to admit what guilt really felt like.

She made it to the airport. And back. Couldn’t bear to board the plane, couldn’t let Billy go.

‘Marth?’ Clive stared, later, insisted, when he found her outside his flat. The street was lit with lampposts and the moon, shadows of tree branches interlinked like snakes on the ground. She retreated when he stepped towards her, careful to leave a few metres of distance between them.

‘Billy’s in hospital,’ Martha stated, finally crossing his gaze. Her phone was out of battery; she couldn’t reach anybody, and the more time went by, the less she felt like she wanted to. Would it really matter if Billy died without seeing her? She swallowed, shook her head, like nothing between them had ever mattered, to her. ‘Which fucking hospital, Clive?’

The look of surprise on his face was the only indicator she’d had, at that point, that he may not have known, may have spent the evening somewhere other than Billy’s bedside.

‘Jesus, where the fuck were you?’ Martha caught herself asking, she’d waited for him all night, she’d –

It was a second before she saw it, smiled to herself as the thought occurred to her: skewed tie, tired look, untucked shirt. Messy hair. Her jaw clenched - she tried not to shake her head, not to – her voice got quiet, like it used to when she’d trace the lines of the veins of his hand, feeling the breeze against her bare legs – a lifetime ago. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Call Jake. I’ll get us a cab.’

Their ride to Barts was silent; Martha sat looking out the window as the 4 a.m. sun slowly started to rise over Clive’s neighbourhood. A few years ago, he used to live in Chelsea. She used to make fun of that, of course, but at least it had a bit more personality than the glass towers of the City. She’s always wondered if he was trying to punish himself for some sort of crime by moving here, leaving To Kill a Mockingbird on display to woo the girls into bed and make up for the fact that most of the pictures in his flat probably came with the frame.

Martha exited the cab as soon as it stopped, left Clive to pay the bill. He caught up with her close to the entrance of the hospital, caught her wrist between his fingers.

‘I was looking for you.’ A pause. She could read the need to explain in his eyes, the need for her to hear him out. ‘You disappeared after the election, I was –’ he spoke in a quick breath, running a hand over his face. The dawn had broken, by then, a soft coral light reflecting in his eyes. He didn’t look attractive, just exhausted. ‘I was worried. They said they lost you on the quays and I –’ he shook his head, bit his lip, caught her gaze. ‘They shot Mickey Joy, Marth.’

Her laugh pierced through the car park. You’ve got to be joking, Martha almost said, didn’t know what Clive’s goal was, with that kind of big revelation, chivalry or whatever he was trying to achieve. You were worried? she thought. Really? Because unlike Mickey Joy, she did everything the Monk family wanted her to do, didn’t she? Jumped into every trick that had been laid out for her and lost her case, sent Sean to the slaughterhouse. Frankly, she’s pretty sure that felt worse than being shot. ‘And, so, what? You went looking for me? Thought of trying to protect me?’

Clive drew in a breath. It sounded a bit like her name, whispered, annoyed. ‘Marth -’

‘Was that before or after Harriet left that hickey on your neck?’

It’s weird, isn’t it, that instinct humans seem to have to try and see something that they know they materially can’t see? Clive tried to look down, his hand suddenly covering his neck (wrong side, she thought), like an innate need to check everything, to keep things under control.

She could see it, though, the bruise left by Harriet’s lips. Even more so then, in the daylight, than she did before, in the dark, in front of his apartment, when she wondered where he’d been. Martha thought she might have left one right there, too, back in the day, in that exact spot, behind Clive’s ear. Threw one last glare at him and walked away (in her head, tried to make him disappear).

.

For days after that, she spends every waking minute (and there are a lot of waking minutes — she barely sleeps, her head against the wall, limbs painfully stuck on a hospital chair) wishing she'd boarded a plane and never looked back. Wishing she were strong enough, uncaring enough to be stuck for over twenty-four hours in a box, thirty-five thousand feet above ground, because at least she could have pretended that none of this was really happening. That Billy wasn't lying on a cold bed, his head resting on a couple of pillows, the blue sheets covering his body, sun barely coming through.

Billy slips in and out of consciousness. Martha tries to be there when he’s awake. They're feeding him through a tube and there's a dead light at the corner of his eyes; it makes her look away.

“Miss,” he mutters, smiles every time she enters the room. His voice is low, breathing laboured. He reaches for her hand and she squeezes it as strong as she can, tries to engrave that memory in her brain, wishes for time to stop and never run away. She's a waitress now, puts the drinks and bread on the table and wishes there was enough time to wait for the food.

“You don’t need to call me Miss anymore, Billy,” she tells him, sitting on a chair by his side. The door of the room is ajar; Clive stands, silent, against the frame. “I’m quitting.”

A sigh escapes from behind her, she doesn’t turn around. “Oh Miss, you'll always be Miss to me,” Billy says, smiles, his soft gaze upon hers. There’s a lump in her throat; she has to remind herself that she’s not one of those women who cry, anymore. Martha Costello had always thought this would be her whole life, from the age of twenty-two. The bar, Billy, and Clive.

She thought they were going to be forever, too.

.

Truth is: she was naive. Should have known. Her dad passed away when she was twenty-five and Martha doesn’t remember it changing anything to her day to day, to tell the truth, save for a passing state of melancholy, a sense that maybe, she’d somehow become alone in the world.

Pints on a Friday, began to last well into the night now that she didn’t have to drive home every other weekend and a drink with Clive often ended up back at his with an empty bottle of red sitting between the both of them.

Martha’s not sure what Clive talked about, most times. Work, probably. His family. Oddly enough, he was always more open to sharing than she was, talking about his siblings and his mum and what a dick his father was. Not in those terms, of course. That was just the conclusion Martha reached.

Sometimes, though, he’d stop speaking, and she’d start talking. A couple of sentences at most, never much, but once – she can’t exactly remember when but she recalls the way he touched her calf, that night, his fingers tracing lines against her skin – she recalls telling him: ‘I don’t know, I think that family is the one you create, not the one you’re born with.’

He looked up at her, stunned, and maybe he hadn’t expected that, not from her. Dad always said that, she thought but stayed silent, both did and didn’t want to justify. Clive laughed. ‘Did I hear that right?’ he asked, leaning over to refill his glass. ‘Miss Bolton-born-and-bred?’

She laughed, too, shook her head at him. ‘I just –’ she paused, trying to organise the thoughts in her head. Time felt suspended, that night, like the both of them were everything there was to anything. ‘These days, Billy tells me what to do, what not to do, who to talk to. Kind of feels like my dad, to be honest. Is that weird?’

Clive burst out laughing, then, and she joined in, just a tad, because it felt good to simply sit there and watch him laugh, happy. ‘I think you’re drunk,’ he said and took her glass out of her hand, kissed her like she belonged to him.

They were young, she thinks. Too young.

.

When she’s with Billy, now, time is also suspended. They don’t talk, not too much; she doesn’t want to have any serious conversations with him, doesn’t want to acknowledge what is actually happening before her eyes. Sometimes, he gets emotional (like he always does), tells her something she doesn’t want to hear - anger doesn’t look good on you, Miss – and she laughs it off, because, well, that’s what she always does, too.

“I think you love me, Miss,” Billy tells her, one morning. She sat on the hospital bed holding his hand when she got in, thought he was asleep. Through the window at the top of the door, she could see Clive talking to Harriet in the corridor, his features hazy through the frosted glass. Martha smiles, shakes her head at Billy.

“We’ve been through this before,” she tells him, rearranging the magazines on his bedside table. “You mean that the other way around.”

Billy laughs (as much as he can laugh, really, starts coughing pretty quickly and brings the oxygen mask back to his mouth for a minute), watches her sit back down on her chair. She glances at Clive through the window before finding Billy’s gaze again. They’re quiet, for a moment, just listening to each other’s breaths. Martha feels Billy’s fingers wrap around hers – “‘A good thing never ends,’ Miss,” he says, his voice calm and peaceful.

She takes a moment to think, raises an eyebrow at him. “JFK?”

Billy chuckles, shakes his head. “Mick Jagger.”    

Ten minutes later, they're interrupted by his sister, a tall woman with shoulder-length dark red hair and a sad look on her face. Without necessarily intending to, she makes Martha feel out of place, like an impostor, watching Billy as they check his vitals. She stands up, grabs her handbag, biting her bottom lip. “Thanks for coming, Miss,” Billy says and she can't bring herself to look into his eyes, take the comment for what it is.

She glances at her watch. “I'll go change, I’ll be back in an hour,” she says, nodding at him.

The corner of his mouth twitches; she pretends not to notice the long silence that follows. “Bye, Miss,” he tells her as she opens the door. She smiles, doesn't find the strength to say the words back.

Never gets to say them, in fact. Forty-five minutes later, he falls into a coma, quietly, like her dad did before he forgot how to breathe. 

.

That’s when the doctors begin to talk to her. They talk to her because it seems that Billy left her a present, on his way out of this life. Forged her signature on it, by the looks of it – she wonders who his bloody so-called witnesses were - but it’s not like she’s going to contest the power of attorney now, is she, when he’s lying there unconscious and they’re asking her questions that nobody wants to answer? Jake and his mum sit next to her in the waiting room with a look on their faces that tells Martha all she needs to know about how glad they are not to be in her shoes, at this particular point in time.

She blames Clive for it. Doesn’t expressly tell anyone but she blames him when she passes him in the corridors, blames him as she looks away every time he tries to provide a pointless ounce of comfort, blames him both for things that are actually within his control and for things that probably have nothing to do with him (perhaps, Billy only developed that tumour because Harriet and he wanted to take over Chambers, who knows?). Martha goes over it again and again until she repeatedly dozes off in her chair, because it’s easier, right now, to have someone to blame. If she’d left after the election and boarded a plane like she meant to, she’d never have known about aggressive chemo protocols and multiple organ failures, and statistics as risks to consider. With Billy unconscious and her on a plane, they probably would have asked the family to make the final call. To say: stop.

It’s easy to hate Clive when she’s standing outside the hospital, chain-smoking, a lighter borrowed from a doctor sinking into the pocket of her jeans. He tries to grab her hand, make her look at him. The hickey on his neck has faded by now and in fairness to him, there doesn’t seem to be any new ones.

Martha doesn’t know what she thinks about that, really. Doesn’t know what she thinks about anything. So, she steps aside, kills her cigarette against the wall.

I know what I need to do, she’d tell him, if she trusted him, still, would bite her lip and look away. Admit: I just can’t –

He’d smile at her, his fingers lifting her chin. Of course, you can, he’d say. That’s why Billy chose you.

Well, she’s made a lot of wrong decisions, lately: she trusted Sean, trusted Clive, so maybe Billy wasn’t all that right to trust her, after all.

“Fuck you,” she enunciates, clearly,  blowing smoke in Clive’s face before pushing her earphones back in her ears, the volume loud enough that she won’t hear anything else he has to say. Picture me in a hospital, Pete Doherty singsongs in her head. The blood runs raw and the bags are full of –

Oh, you’re terrible. I’m invincible.

.

After that, from the day Billy loses consciousness, her life becomes ruled by a routine she can’t remember summoning. Mornings, she swallows a couple of ibuprofens and takes the tube to St Paul’s, walks the road to Barts. She stays in Billy’s room as long as they allow her to, and sometimes, she fools herself into thinking he’s waking up, watching for a breath to be drawn a bit longer, for an eyelid to bat open. In the evenings, she drinks until she passes out on the sofa. Repeats the next day.

There’s a con, though, one afternoon. It was the last one Billy had booked before everything, the last one on her calendar, set a few days after he knew Sean’s trial was scheduled to end. Martha knows why he booked it, that con in particular: Robin Laurel is a lovely young girl she’s had the pleasure of defending half a dozen times before, having the somewhat annoying habit of taking possession of people’s purses on busy tube trains. Her mother, Muriel, an overworked, overwhelmed, overspent beautiful woman on the heavier side of the scale, had always held a special spot in Martha’s heart, with her stunning ability to unfailingly believe in the redeemable character of her daughter. Her daughter, who had now been arrested on pretty baseless drug importation charges, carrying a package on her boyfriend’s behalf. It’s the kind of case Martha likes - used to like, at least - the kind of case with a purpose, and Billy must have thought it would keep her here, even after she’d lost Sean’s.

Martha considers returning it, while gathering the binder from her flat, while on the way to the con, but when she sees Muriel’s friendly face outside the jail, she can’t bring herself to. Maybe Billy did know everything about her life before she did, didn’t he? He even knew about Sean, now that she thinks about it, looked at her with eyes that begged her to understand the kind of mistakes she was making. All she saw when she looked at her client, though, was Sean McBride, the boy she fell in love with when she was fourteen, full of laughter, heart and bravado. Everything he did, at the time, she thought sounded grandiloquent, rebellious: everything that she wanted to be. Well, there’s not much of that left, anymore, is there?

She did what she could, at sentencing. Maximum security, solitary (for his protection, only). He shouted, afterwards, said: ‘You can’t do that to me, Mar.’

‘You lied to my face.’

He paced. She sat. Wanted him to just stop, still.

‘You can appeal.’

He did stop, then, shot her a look. Asked: ‘Will you help?’

A million years ago, CW had asked if he was her first ‘toxic cocktail’. And, of course, he was. Like that time in uni when she drank a few too many vodka-cokes and ended up in hospital. Now, Martha keeps expecting someone to turn up on her doorstep to tell her he’s dead. Knifed by another inmate like Micky Joy fell in the Thames.

‘Come on, Mar. Help me out, here,’ he pleaded, again. She never responded.

That’s why Billy can’t die, she thinks, now, as she decides to take on Robin’s case: she can’t lose everyone, can’t lose him. Not after all of this, not after she lost everything, not after Sean. More cowardly, Martha guesses, she doesn’t want to be there when he’s gone. Doesn’t want to know. ‘Dying’ was his state of being for so long, and she was so preoccupied with helping, defending, caring, that she forgot that state of being would lead to not being, one day, at all. That she’d be all alone.

Robin’s trial is not scheduled right away but has a procedural hearing that Friday, so Martha works from the hospital until then, only going back to her flat for a change of clothes. She shuts off her phone, doesn’t want to see it ringing anymore, can’t make the decisions they’re asking her to make. ‘Just keep him alive,’ she begged Billy’s doctors and she recalls the way they looked at each other like it was the wrong thing to say.

.

She can win this, she wants to believe. Clive laughed at her in the pub, once; she was sitting there, looking at her hands, moping at a recent loss. They were young. ‘You’re such a sore loser,’ he smiled, pointed out that if at least eighty per cent of their clients were going to be guilty, she’d better get used to it.

‘I just don’t like losing when it matters.’

He laughed again, then, caught her gaze. ‘Except it always matters with you, doesn’t it?’

Robin’s case is winnable, she knows, and yes, it matters. Maybe that’s why Billy picked it out in the first place. But the girl won’t press charges against her stupid boyfriend who’s profusely apologised since, and that drives Martha a bit mad. It will only escalate, she knows, and there’ll be other cases, other cases Robin’s mum thinks Martha will be there to handle when in truth, all that Billy’s illness did by bringing her back from the airport was to postpone the inevitable. She won’t help Sean. She won’t help anyone, after this. She’ll just try and help herself.

In her dreams, sometimes, Martha owns a pub or a café, somewhere far away. It has a great playlist that barely covers the sounds of glasses clinking against each other, happiness and laughter. As soon as this is finished, she decides, she’ll be out of London on another plane and her café will be surrounded by palm trees, on a beach. 

The only problem with that is: she’s not quite sure what this is.

‘Shut up, Clive,’ she told him, back then, at the pub, with a large smile on her face. ‘Make me dance.’

On the tables,  she thought. Until the sun comes up.

.

The doorbell buzzes outside her flat that night. She’s listening to the police tape recording of the 999 call from Robin’s case, doesn’t get up, waits for a second buzz that never comes. Martha finds a bouquet of flowers on her doorstep, later on, a dozen of white roses with a short note in Clive’s handwriting. A peace offering. “Talk to us,” it just says and she wonders who the hell us could be when he tore through chambers with all he had, and kicked Billy and she out of their own family.

.

When Martha’s father passed away, Billy almost had to physically push her out of Chambers for her to attend the funeral. Denial is a cunt, she knows. On Thursday night, the night before the hearing, she looks at Billy as she sits on a chair in his hospital room. He looks –

They hooked him up to a machine to help him breathe and closed his eyes for him. They say the movements behind his lids are automatic, that he doesn’t dream, doesn’t feel them, anymore. When she holds it, his hand is cold, feels like she’s running her palm over the tiles of her bathroom wall. A few days ago, Martha still used to talk to him, tell him about her days and how much she missed him. She can’t bring herself to, anymore. As she told him a while back, she believes in a big bang beginning to the universe, doesn’t think he can hear.

‘He’s dead and I feel relieved,’ she confessed, once, after she came back from Bolton, her father’s body in the ground. ‘How awful is that?’

They were smoking outside, a pitch dark winter night; there was a chill in the air, dark brown leaves on the ground. Martha pushed them around with the toe of her shoe. ‘It’s not, Miss,’ Billy just said, his arm lightly brushing against hers.

Billy looks dead, Martha decides, now, looking at him, lying flat on his hospital bed. Like her dad did when he sat there for hours on end on a rocking chair, not knowing who he was. She felt like she’d finally reached the end of one of those stories he used to read her, back then, bittersweet, not knowing what the next one would be. Billy glanced at her as she puffed out smoke into the air, and smiled.

‘I never liked you picking up that habit, Miss,’ he said, nodding at her cigarette.

She tapped it with her finger, ash dropping to the ground. ‘I just hope it kills me before –’ she started, trailed off.

The night was clear, stars far up in the sky. When she was five, her grandmother passed away and her parents told her: That’s Nan, up there, do you see? Back then, she thought she did. She thought –

‘Before something else does,’ Martha sighed, quick, breathing in another drag. That night, she thought of hospital beds and childhood memories, of what the doctors had told her about genetics and the inner workings of brain cells (her brain cells), after her dad passed away. She threw the information booklet from the testing company in their faces and later, just stared at his coffin as they put him to the ground, the grass wet around her feet. She never wanted to know if she had it, too. The disease, what Dad had; her mum always said she should prepare, and Martha always shrugged. She liked the idea of it being an eventuality, something that might or might not be. At least, maybe I’ll forget that, too, she thought to herself, dropping a rose at the bottom of the hole they’d dug for him. 

When Billy heard her speak, outside of Chambers, he laughed. She remembers that, the sound still echoes in her ears. Her desert island playlist. ‘There are nicer ways to die than lung cancer, Miss.’

She scoffed, let ash drop to the ground. ‘Like what?’

‘In your sleep?’

Billy’s nurse interrupts her train of thoughts, now, for a moment, entering the room and checking the monitors around him. She’s nice, always asks if Martha wants tea, coffee, told her where the best machine was, a few metres down the hall. “I feel like he’s dead, already,” Martha confesses, the room oddly quiet, spare for the rhythm of Billy’s heart, artificially regular, like a metronome.

Alicia – that’s her name – smiles, looks down at the foot of Billy’s bed. There rest the forms that they asked Martha to sign, earlier, when she couldn’t muster up the strength to hold a pen in her hand. “Maybe you should make that official, then,” she suggests. Her skin is dark; she looks calm, like the kind of person who reads bedtime stories to her children and scares the monsters away.

Martha looks down at her fingers, still against the keys of her laptop, breathes.

.

‘You’ve ever been scared?’ she remembers asking Clive, a long time ago. It was her first appearance in front of the Appeals Court; she was twenty-seven. ‘Like, really, really scared?’

He laughed. Looked up from his desk and caught her gaze from the other side of the room. 'Yeah,' he admitted, smiled. 'First time I kissed you.'

She rolled her eyes and groaned at him (clearly not what she had in mind), look focusing back on the brief in front of her.

‘What?’ he chuckled, hands thrown up in the air in surrender. ‘I thought you were going to hit me in the face! That has to count!’

Martha smiled, shook her head at him. Teased. ‘Maybe, I should have.’

.

In court, fighting for Robin the next day, things go her way, so to speak. By some incredible twist of fate (considering, well - everything), Martha gets the brother’s hostile evidence thrown out on irrelevance grounds; she’s almost surprised that she's even able to formulate full sentences, standing in court. Her brain feels fuzzy, like she is there  but also not, distant, as if whatever is happening to her is happening to someone else. She didn't sleep, last night.

At the end of the day, Muriel hugs her like she always does, body wrapping around Martha’s like it wraps around her daughter’s. “Thank you,” she says. Martha looks up at her and smiles, something discreet, half-dared.

“You look sad,” Robin tells her, later, in her cell. It feels odd, being told that (especially by someone locked up between four walls) and the familiar feeling of guilt immediately comes back to haunt Martha’s mind; she didn't mean to scare the girl. She’s just a kid, Martha thinks, and young people can be incredibly perceptive - it’s just tough, today, to pretend. Pretend that shit doesn’t keep piling up, pretend that she doesn’t feel like life has been sucked out of her.

(She’s just someone who feels a lot, generally. A guy in her bed once told her: ‘When you’re happy, you’re very happy. When you’re sad, you’re very sad. Wouldn’t want to be in your head, to be honest. Must be exhausting.’ 

And yes, Martha guesses, sometimes it is. But at least, it feels like life. Now, since this morning, she feels nothing. Hasn’t cried, or held her breath, screamed. It all just feels like a vacuum.)

Maybe, sometimes, she is just such an open book. 

“Is it good?” Robin asks, after a pause, quickly catching Martha’s gaze. “What happened? The evidence? Please tell me it’s good.”

And yes, Martha imagines that it is. It mattered so much, yesterday, yet somehow barely registers, today. The case appears to have moved forward through very little action of her own, as though someone had taken over her body and mind, and had pleaded with the judge on autopilot, albeit successfully so. Maybe, she’ll win this, she muses, go out on a professional high, against all odds. So: “Yes,” Martha says, forces a painful smile across her lips. “Don’t get your hopes up, but yes, it’s good.”

.

On the way back to the robbing room, she takes her time. There’s no rush, no other case to tend to or courtroom to be in, nobody else to see. Usually, she’d sprint back to chambers, say hi to Billy in the clerks’ room, go into –

She’s turned her phone back on, today, and Jake’s ring shakes her out of her thoughts like Billy’s used to. Martha picks up on autopilot as she walks down the corridors, comes to a standstill around the corner of the one that leads to the robbing room. “Thanks,” she says, the call barely a couple of minutes long. When she hangs up, though, Martha hears familiar voices rising from the other side of the wall. A memory of Billy’s face flashes before her eyes: they’re young and just moved into new offices, Chambers so poor they had her creepy neighbour put the furniture together for them; her desk collapsed as soon as Billy set a couple of heavy binders on it. They laughed, she recalls, so hard tears ran down their faces, painful cramps in their stomachs. ‘Miss,’ Billy said, barely able to speak as he watched her look at the remnants of her desk on the floor. ‘What a great start –’

Martha wants to laugh again, one day, wants to cry again, too. Instead, she stands there and pushes the memory away, buries it deep down in the sand never to be seen again. She’s always been good at that: ignoring the things that rack up in her brain. Billy, Clive, Sean, she pushes them so far away that they don’t exist, replaced by the here and now, the day to day, one step at a time until she gets through the door.

She did the same thing the moment she got silk. Pushed aside the pain in her belly and the blood that was still staining her pants and decided: yes, this is the happiest I’ve ever been. The rest? It didn’t exist (technically, she guessed, it never really did). People spend hundreds of pounds on expensive therapy sessions and yoga gear – she heats up frozen crumpets in the oven and gets on with it.

In the ambulance, she remembers: her hand on her stomach, her heart racing in her chest. For a minute, her eyes shut. I’ll miss you, little one, she thought.

.

It’s quarter to four when Martha stops dead in her tracks, after speaking to Jake. The corridor to the robbing room is shaped like an L - she's on one side; they're on the other. She doesn't know why (maybe she just doesn't want to see them) but Martha doesn't turn the corner, just hides with her back to the wall as soon as she recognises their voices, listens in. The sounds escape from her left, whispered arguments and no-listen-to-me-s uttered with pseudo authority.

Generally, Martha hates people who can’t argue in private. Granted, it may be a bit rich coming from her but it reminds her of the rare times she would overhear her parents fighting. Back then, Martha used to sit at the top of the stairs, hugging the plush rabbit she’d carry around everywhere, desperately trying to block out the sounds from her ears. Today, she recognises the voices, though, and it’s what throws her off, makes her stay.

“Oh, so she showed up for court?”

“Look, Harriet, she just needs —”

“Needs what, Clive? We’re prosecuting, she doesn’t want to prosecute, she doesn’t show up in Chambers, doesn’t make any decisions regarding Billy, doesn’t pick up her phone, you expect me to —”

“She needs time. Billy and her —”

“Oh,” Harriet laughs. “So, you’re telling me she slept with him too?”

“Of course not,” Clive starts, scoffs. “That’s not -”

And there and then, for the life of her, Martha realises that she can’t fucking fathom why the both of them chose here, of all places - the middle of the Bailey - to have this conversation. Sure, she can neither see Clive nor Harriet from where she stands (and more importantly, she guesses, they can’t see her), but she can definitely hear them, of course, and imagine them. She’s argued with Clive enough in the past fifteen years to know how he behaves, frowns, scoffs when something so utterly ridiculous to him is said that he doesn’t even want to discuss it. Harriet insists: “You just think she’s some sort of Saint –” And in that moment, Clive scoffs at Harriet the same way he scoffed at Martha’s arguments in defence of Sean and it feels like a knife pushed slowly through the muscles in her back.

“Really?” he argues back. “You want to go there?”

In Martha’s brain, then, an instinct of self-preservation kicks in, says: leave. Something heavy feels like it’s closing in on her, downing on her, suffocating her in a toxic fog. There’s frankly no real need for her to hear this, on top of everything else - it’s a private dispute and Harriet is jealous – frankly, has every right to be. Clive’s probably been using her the same way he’s used every woman before her, thought she was hot and likely to help him become Head of Chambers, couldn’t keep it in his pants while he climbed the ladder.

Yet, Martha stays. She can’t explain it, maybe it’s a sick kind of curiosity or a sign of the state of shock she’s been in since last night but as Harriet’s stunned silence fills the corridor, she finds herself unable to move.

Harriet is angry (of course, she is, who wouldn’t be?), so her response comes in a loud whisper, like someone trying desperately not to shout. “Yeah, we’re going there, Clive, what do you fucking think?” He tries to argue back, Martha can tell from the short moment of silence that stands for the breath he draws, but gets interrupted again. “Look, you promised, Clive,” the other woman argues, case in hand. Her voice is cold and factual; she quotes from memory, uses the evidence she has to make her point (would have made a great barrister, all things considered). “‘I don’t give a crying fuck about Martha Costello,’ isn’t that what you said?” she tells him, the words quick out of her mouth. “‘If we have to throw her under the bus, then so be it. She doesn’t have children to feed.’ Well, now is the bloody time, Clive,” Harriet swears, her heel clicking against the floor as she takes a step forward. “I’m not one of your fucking girls.”

Something falls off Martha’s arms. Her handbag hits the floor in a loud bang, a couple of binders sliding out. She bends down automatically, picks the mess up from off the floor, hoping to remain hidden from view, but by the time she catches her breath, the voices seem to have stopped. She stands, looks up and finds both Clive and Harriet’s stares set on her, a few meters out. Clive takes a quick step back, freezes.

It’s funny: the phrase Harriet used must have rung a bell for both of them, Martha muses. She dropped her stuff to the floor in surprise but Clive almost looks shell-shocked from what he heard, like he doesn’t want to look at Martha but also can’t take his glare off her. The distant memory almost makes Martha sick to her stomach, makes her want to disappear. It’s a flashback from fifteen years ago and it hits her in the face like a truck: she’s twenty-five again, after she slept with him for the first time in her shitty flat out in a council estate in Peckham, with walls so thin she could hear the neighbour’s kettle go off every day at 7:30 on the dot, like clockwork. ‘I don’t want,’ she started, stopped, didn’t know how to explain. I don’t want Chambers gossip, she thought. I don’t want my career to be defined by who I sleep with. I don’t want – ‘I don’t want to be one of your girls,’ Martha ended up saying, glaring at him with her arms crossed over her chest. He lay in her bed as she stood against the wall of her bedroom, bracing herself for his response.

Clive smiled, shook his head and simply said: ‘You won’t be.’ Made his way over to her, took her face in his hands and kissed her.

Fuck you, she thinks, now. Fuck this.

“Marth –” he starts (to try and explain, maybe, as though words could possibly explain this) but her vision is distorted, hazy; Martha sees Harriet step out to look at her, too, and try to open her mouth before Clive’s glare stops her.

Frankly, Martha doesn’t know what makes her do it. She’s not a violent person, generally, gets angry - sure - and feels a lot, but has never in her life felt the desire to do this before. Yet, wordlessly, she lets herself step forward towards Clive - once, twice, and before she knows it (before Clive knows it), her hand flies flat against the side of his face, leaves a big, red mark on the skin of his cheek. The slap lands and the world stops; it’s almost an out of body experience, but also seems to pour out of Martha with more determination and deliberation than anything else she’s done in the past twenty-four hours. Even her time in court felt fuzzy, this morning, whereas this feels so unbelievably real. The world stops and she watches, notices that people are staring, all around them, clerks and barristers, and the whole of Middle Temple - most importantly Harriet, who just glares at Martha with hatred in her eyes.

Clive says nothing. His hand reaches his cheek when Martha’s falls by her side, the both of them stunned; Martha swallows. Their gazes cross and there is pain in her eyes like she knows he’s never seen before - you fucking cunt, she thinks. 

“What the -” Harriet begins to speak but Clive stops her, expertly, a hand on her forearm. Martha watches, motionless. There is a moment of silence - he stares at her, takes the hit.

“Okay,” he says. “I guess I deserved that.” A breath. “Marth, I -”

She shakes her head. “Not here.”

. 

Not here, not ever, she thinks. So, in a second, she takes the quick decision to run, escape. Guesses that he didn’t want to speak to her, before, and she doesn’t want to talk to him, now, so it’s only fair that she runs. Martha’s always been good at that: running. Everyone tends to think she’s confrontational, faces things head on, but who are they kidding? At seventeen, she ran from her father’s disease like it was the first wave of a tsunami and then ran again and again until pain shot through her calves. 

The door of the robbing room opens under her weight and bangs in her wake, flies opens again seconds later when Clive follows suit. He glares; Martha refuses to look at him, heart heaving in her chest. “You’re not fucking running away from this -” he shouts and thankfully they’re alone, thankfully -

“Clive, I swear to God, you don’t want to do this! You have no idea -”

She doesn't want to tell him, can't be the one to tell him. It's not the plan, not - "Oh, so this is about Sean, again?" Clive roars back, she can almost see his temper rising. “You know what? I’m growing real tired of you playing the injured party, here -”

He’s interrupted by the door bursting open again. Neither of them really looks at Harriet stepping in, asking: “What’s going on, here?” because Martha screams.

Or at least that’s what she’d say happened, if asked, in retrospect. She screams words to stop him from saying other words. But maybe, also, screams doesn’t quite cut it. It’s more like a howl, a deperate howl, an animal in pain, finally reacting, begging that the beating stop. Martha howls like Clive just cut through her heart with words and feels tears in her eyes that she hasn’t felt in a long time. 

She’s not numb, anymore, she’s hurting, she’s -

“BILLY’S DEAD!” she shouts, then. Loud, in the middle of the deserted robbing room, and she swears that for the second time that day, the minutes stops. Her voice breaks, for the first time since last night, for the first time since Alicia promised, promised Martha that she was doing the right thing, by signing the papers. Cancer had turned Billy into a vegetable and yet, the both of them held his hand until 4 AM, until he actually went, and Martha didn’t cry, had to be strong, for him, carry on. She’s been strong all morning, all afternoon, through court, hell and highwater, but this, she -

It’s the little things. The straw that breaks the camel’s back. Breaks her. What Clive said, or what Harriet said he said, him shouting at her that made her snap, say the one thing she never meant to say to him. He shouldn't have found out like that, Martha muses. Jake was supposed to call him, but -

There is silence, amongst the three of them: Harriet, Clive, her. Clive checks Martha's face for signs that this might be a lie, a bad joke, but it isn’t and she holds his gaze, tells him. He sits. On the bench, between rows of lockers, even Harriet looks stunned. “I didn’t -” the other woman starts and Martha glares, makes her stop.

“Jake decided not to tell you,” she explains, almost on autopilot; her gaze catches Clive’s. “Didn’t want to tell you until you were done with your speech.”

‘Clive’s on this huge robbery,’ Jake had said, last night. ‘If we tell him, he’ll -’

So, they didn’t tell him. Until now, she guesses.

.

Martha’s not sure how long they stay quiet, listening to the rain tapping against the windows. There seems to be about a hundred questions on Clive’s lips and Martha imagines that she’d be willing to answer them, in time, but Harriet ends up breaking the silence before either of them can find their words.

“I’m sorry to bring this up but we’ll need to put out something on Chambers’ website -”

“Harriet.”

Clive’s voice is hoarse; he catches her gaze, words dying on his lips. There is nothing to say, nothing for him to say and Martha is quicker, anyway, cuts through any warnings he could give. Her handbag is hanging from her shoulder when she glares at Harriet, swears: “You fucking bitch.”

Martha Costello is out of the room before the woman even has time to respond.

.

‘Do you think Billy knows?’ Clive asked, years before, his fingers slowly trailing down her skin in post-coital bliss. In her memories, she’s thirty-two, hotshot barrister at the top of her game, and one of the men she loves is in her bed, asking about another (entangled, like a web of broken threads). Clive and she had gone to a party, barristers and solicitors everywhere and escaped before dessert was served.

She looked up at him, her head propped up on her hand, raised an eyebrow. ‘About what?’

‘About…’ he started. His hand left her arm to gesture between the both of them, a bit of red on his cheeks. ‘About us?’

She puffed out a loud laugh, something laid-back and genuine, shook her head at him. ‘That what?’ she asked, amused. Maybe, back then, she played games with him, too. ‘That we fuck sometimes?’ she chuckled, dropped a quick peck on his lips before lying back to stare at the ceiling. It was summer, hot; she wore his shirt, two buttons done above her midriff, and nothing underneath. ‘I doubt that’s any of his business.’

The thing is, even before Nottingham, Clive and she were a thing. An intermittent, messy thing that at the time felt easy, like he was her friend, more than anything else. Sometimes, weeks, even months would go by before she sat on his desk one evening, toed off her shoes and let her skirt ride up, to the edge of her stockings. The night before, he’d been sat next to her at the dinner party and she’d felt his hand against her thigh, trailing up. What do you think you’re doing? she’d whispered, in his ear.

Stop me, he’d dared. It didn’t even occur to her to.

Later, that morning, Clive smiled and moved to steal a kiss from her lips, pulled away. ‘I think he hates me because he thinks I’m not good enough for you.’

She laughed, shaking her head at him. Teased. ‘And you think you are?’  

.

Somehow, she doesn’t jump into the incoming traffic, on her way home. For a split second, she thinks that she might, watches a bus heading her way and thinks she could just - but then what would be the point?

Instead, when she gets home, her brain sings a quiet lullaby. Martha slips off her shoes, her feet bare and cold against the floor. When I go don’t cry for me, in my father’s arms I’ll be, a voice whispers, in her head, and maybe that’s the thing about her, isn’t it? The thing she’s forgotten about herself, the fact that she’s not not a crier. Has never actually been one of those iron-clad women that people seem to think she is, one of the ones who walk in and out of court like nothing ever gets to them, like anger and injustice, and sadness don’t drive tears rolling down their faces. When she started out at the bar, her main problem was that her voice would always catch in her throat, out of stress or frustration; she would have to make herself pause, swallow, and breathe out before she continued. She taught herself this trick, hiding it behind a harsh comeback, focusing the attention elsewhere, or taking a discreet sip of water. Maybe that’s when the misjudging started happening, she reflects, when people started calling her a cold-blooded bitch behind her back. She put up this angry front, played with it and the aura it gave her and the tears disappeared out of the professional arguments as quickly as they’d come. She became someone else, someone she thought was stronger, smarter in her retorts, never letting herself cry in front of anyone ever again.  When the tears did come, sometimes still, she let them go holding her own body in the quiet of her flat, listening to Joy Division.

She only ever broke that rule once, didn’t she? When her belly hurt so much, cramping like someone had thrust a knife through it, that she had to trust another person with her feelings, and that clearly hadn’t been a good choice, now, had it?

When she gets home, the evening after Billy dies, she collapses on the floor with her face between her hands, unable to see, unable to speak. ‘He’s gone,’ Alicia's voice said in her ear and now, Martha wants to be gone, too. Wants her mum to hug her and her dad to hold her hand, lie and say it will all be okay. She wants them to tell her about naming stars after people.

Hidden in the dark, she finds herself rocking her small frame back and forth, her eyes a waterfall.

Chapter Text

ii.

         Nous étions formidables. [We were wonderful.]

Formidable - Stromae

Tears don’t dry, she’s learnt. They sink. Sink into your skin; scar red, painful cheeks and Martha Costello, well, she’s never been one to work out her frustration on a treadmill. She likes frozen food heated up in the oven and boxes of Ben & Jerry’s. Likes to work.

There’s no work, anymore.

Years of law, logic, and ILACs drive her to the next best thing on her list: she dances.

It’s the way she deals with things, has taught herself to deal with things. Alone in her student halls in Manchester when she failed Torts her first year, crying herself to sleep, thinking she’d never make it to morning. Got very drunk, that night, remembers her mother over the landline and how she suggested Martha come home, her sweet voice betraying excitement in her ear.

‘You’ll learn to be problem solvers,’ they told her in bar school as she worked endlessly, split the little time she had between solicitors, barristers and clients, trying to make ends meet. The thing is: she’s never been taught to consider her own problems, has she? So, again, she dances. The music loud in her ears, echoing in her flat, letting her head bounce from side to side against the flow; it releases endorphins, she’s learnt, dulls the noise in her head.

Martha made a playlist for Billy, a while back, the closest thing to a mixtape. It had: Coldplay, Florence and the Machine and that song from that band from Bury that she really likes. She recalls: Joy Division and Clive, and Sean. He used to listen to rock, she remembers, Smells Like Teen Spirit blasting out of his window back home, his punk hair and early tattoos; she suspects it might be the reason why her mother never really warmed up to him.

Tonight, Martha wants: Springsteen and Blondie, maybe Cyndi Lauper. Her iPod plays: PJ Harvey, Laura Marling and Radiohead. You’re not going to get anywhere with that, Mar, a voice whispers, in her ear. She moves between the four walls of her living room: it feels like being trapped in a cage, books and books of criminal statutes threatening to fall over. She doesn’t know where to look, where not to look, and how she’s going to drag herself to court on Monday.

Billy’s dead. Everything she’s ever known is kind of dead.

And frankly, it’s all her fault.

.

So, she drinks.

It’s the other thing she’s taught herself to do (well, maybe the bar did, or living in student halls for two years, she’s not sure), wine tainting her lips redder than makeup ever could, softening the cushions on her couch, lulling her to sleep. With her eyes closed, she can remember the taste of Clive’s mouth over hers in that empty courtroom, months ago; it’s funny, she muses, how his happiness always seems to be tied to her losses.

She tries, tries so hard to fall asleep, lying in bed still fully clothed, working her way through a bottle of Merlot. It doesn’t work, though. Minutes pass and she’s still staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, almost wishing for inexistent cracks in the paint to trace from the corner of her eyes. Who are you? they asked, back in Chambers, and: someone who’s angry, she thinks. Someone who’s sad.

Her mother had warned her, back then, hadn’t she? ‘You’re leaving us for nothing more than a bunch of posh Londoners who’ll never take you in,’ she’d said, enraged; Martha’s university bags half-full and scattered around her room on the highest floor of their house, head bumping into the sloped ceiling every time she got up. Who are you? she asks, again, looking at her reflection in the mirror as she slips on jeans and a clean top, letting her blonde curls fall free and frame her face. She needs to get out. Needs to hear music she doesn’t know, voices that don’t hurt. The hot summer air assaults her nostrils when she makes it out of her flat; she looks for a pub - any pub - with a band, and songs loud enough that they will change the beat of her heart (maybe if she dances hard enough, it won’t hurt as bad).

.

The floor of the bar that she ends up at is dark, wood tired and worn out under her feet. The soles of her shoes stick to the ground with remnants of sugar, spilled alcohol and all that London has to offer on a Friday night. Martha orders her fourth (fifth?) shot of vodka from the bar and looks around as the liquid is poured, someone else sliding in next to her to order their own.

She eyes the dancefloor, a good two hundred people laughing and moving in sync to Toxic by Britney Spears, her head already buzzing from the bottle of wine she’s had at home; she’s moving in to get her drink when a man standing to her right offers to pay for it. For a moment, Martha stills, silent and unsure what to say. Their orders are similar (hers: translucent; his: brown, handed over with a slice of lemon and a touch of salt) - he gives her a large smile and says: “Can I get yours, too?”

Before she knows it, Martha’s letting their glasses clink against each other, nodding at him and downing her drink as he hands over his card to the bartender.  

Discretely, she chooses to consider him (her handsome, dark stranger). He’s tall, that she can tell. Short, brown hair, on the wrong side of his thirties. A pair of sunglasses hangs loosely from the pocket of his shirt; he looks a bit like a tourist but: good enough, she catches herself thinking as he smiles confidently and turns back to face her, leaning against the side of the counter. He’s not the kind of person she’d usually go for, objectively (but then her type has sucked, lately), and she guesses she’s always had a bad boy ‘thing’, after all (or so her mother used to insist). As a teenager, she discovered she liked the way the boys felt, next to her. Liked the way they smelled, the way their hands grazed and groped at her skin. She likes the sex, too, she’s not going to make a secret out of it. The sex, she thinks, is pleasurable as much as it is a weapon.

Brown Hair’s friends hover behind him, watching intently as he moves closer to her. “What’s your name?” he asks, drapes an arm over the counter, leaning in, a hand on her shoulder; she hears laughter, distant in the background. The bartender drops two pints of beer in front of them and as her lips caress the liquid, she feels her stomach protest slightly. She sets the drink down again.

The thing is, she’d thought dancing would get her problems out of her system. She’d thought drinking would, too. Yet, the first name she thinks of, her head spinning in a dark pub that smells like sweat, is still Billy’s. Billy, Billy, Billy, the voice in her head repeats; she shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, her gaze focuses on Brown Hair, hazy on the details of his face.

She’s not particularly proud of the solution she considers, but she’s been told that releases endorphins, too.

"Does it matter?" she blurts out, shaking her head to the beat. Her fingers hook onto the belt hoop of his jeans.

His hand is on her waist before she knows it. “I suppose not,” he says.

She grabs his arm and swiftly navigates them to the toilets, at the other end of the crowded bar.

..

Letting the door close behind them, she finds herself pushed against it. His palms are large, strong, running down her sides, lips catching hers. She tastes the bitterness of lemon and tequila in his mouth, fingernails digging into the flesh of his back. It’s been years since she’s last done something like this, something real, and dirty, something that would make someone like bloody Harriet blush, and it makes her want to shove it in Clive’s face. See, she thinks, I can have fun, too.

Brown Hair tastes good, feels good, too. Wild.

She tugs his shirt out of his trousers, accidentally rips a button open; he doesn’t seem to notice as her fingers trail over his skin, pulling him closer. He’s quite fit, she realises, her palms over his bare stomach; he nudges her legs open with his knee, his thigh pressing into her. She’s in heels tonight – the real four-inch shit, not the short ones she wears to court - and her balance isn’t the greatest so she almost falls off and sinks into his thigh, a loud moan escaping her mouth. His lips find her neck, suck. “Oh God,” she exhales, a gasp cutting her breaths.

He flicks a thumb over her nipple; she feels him smirk against her skin.

Her instincts kick in, eventually, and she takes the lead, feeling him through his jeans as she moves against him. “Tease,” he mutters against her neck when she almost stops, the lightest touch of her fingers remaining. A laugh escapes her lips; she begins to unbutton his trousers, pull down his flies, her hand grazing his skin. He breathes out against her chest, hands cascading down to her hips. His fingers start mimicking her own movements, slowly, teasingly working their way into her knickers, slipping between the fabric of her underwear and her skin.

“Fuck,” she swears against his mouth; she’s already so bloody wet it’s almost embarrassing.

In a couple of swift motions, she feels his hand on her, stroking the skin under her underwear, humming against her mouth. His fingers travel South, curving into her jeans; her heart races, head slightly spinning as she holds onto him for balance - truth be told, she does appreciate that he’s allowing a bit of foreplay into their drunken encounter. Her chin over his shoulder, in slow motion, she feels his fingers moving, sliding inside her. Her hips buck against his hand, instinctively, moving towards him. Yet, somehow, she feels herself freeze. 

It’s almost an out of body experience, really, like she’s watching it happen from above. Wait, her own voice echoes in her head, the lights dancing in front of her; she feels like she’s going to faint. Slowly, Martha closes her eyes, tries to breathe.

It must be a couple of seconds before she comes to her senses, feels him still hard against her hand. The Earth spins around her and she’s beginning to feel the sickening taste of alcohol making its way to the back up her throat; it makes it hard not to gag. His fingertips snap, next to her ear. The sound loud; it makes her jump. “Come on,” he says, pleads, his voice hoarse and frustrated as he tugs at her jeans.

Her bum is pressed up against the door. She reckons she would have to lift it up a bit for him to pull down her pants, but finds herself unable to move. His palms seem to spread all over her body, keeping her in place as he presses against her stomach; it seems like he’s trying to elicit some kind of reaction out of her, help her along.

“Wait,” she whispers.

He doesn’t hear. Or, at least, that’s what she thinks. The music is loud in their ears, after all, Martha can still make out the lyrics. And the walls came tumbling down in the city that we love. Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above.

“Wait,” she repeats, louder, this time. He kisses her neck, gropes at her breasts; she’s actively trying not to retch. But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes – A shout escapes her mouth: “Stop!”

And for a short blissful moment, her words do seem to have the desired impact: his hands freeze against her hips; Brown Hair relents. She feels him pull back, a rush of air exiting her lungs, relief flooding her brain. Martha blinks, twice, until his palms move back onto her shoulders, strong-arming her. “Come on,” he sighs, heavy in her ear, against her frame. He smells of sweat and stale beer. “You’re not going to stop now, are you?” he insists.

His lips and stubble are raw against her cheek, his fingers snake back down inside her pants. She tries to push him away, close her legs in the process, but nothing seems to help. “No!” she shouts, this time, wishing for someone - anyone - to hear (clear denial of consent, her slow, drunken brain presses), but he’s heavy against her again, his body trapping hers against the door. She can’t even kick him as he forces a hand onto her mouth, hard, to stop her from screaming again.

It’s a little bit of a blur, almost an automatic reaction: she bites down on his skin, hard. He groans and something heavy hits the side of her head in retaliation. Martha feels warm liquid cascading down her face; it tastes like metal at the corner of her mouth.

In one fluid movement, his hands find her forearms again. She understands what’s about to happen as soon as they do, feels him trying to switch positions, turn her to face the door. As in slow motion, she becomes aware of each one of her heartbeats, fear weighing down her stomach: with her back to him, she won’t be able to move. Her instincts kick in, again, and she holds onto his shoulders as strong as she can when he grabs hers, keeping them face-to-face. He wrestles; she’s not strong enough, won’t be able to hold on forever, can already feel her limbs grow weaker in the struggle, unable to keep up with the intensity of his pull. Don’t let him win, she thinks, and oddly: you led him here, they’ll tear you apart in cross.

She’s got one chance, she knows, before he traps her again between himself and the stall. She grabs the flesh of his arms with as much force as she can still muster, gaining a tiny bit of leverage, pushing herself away from the door. He’s caught off guard, tries to resist as he stumbles backwards. Martha keeps holding him until her fingers go numb, his biceps flexing as he moves and struggles against her. Using her momentum as she pushes him away, she leans onto him and slams her knee into the space between his legs as hard as she can –

She hears him scream. Her eyes - wide open as she staggers backwards – see him fall to the floor, his back hitting the toilet seat in a dull and painful crack. For an instant, she wonders if she’s killed him, or if the toilet seat’s hit his spine strong enough that he’ll end up paralysed for the rest of his life and feels almost guilty. She stays there, barely able to stand, still.

“You, fucking cunt,” she hears him say as he writhes in pain (not dead, she thinks), his words barely registering until out of the corner of her eyes, she sees him beginning to move, pushing himself back on his knees (not paralysed either, she adds).

She thinks of kicking him again, but the world spins around her and she doesn’t think her balance would hold. Go, the voice in her head says and for once she listens, stumbling over her heels on the way out. Outside the bathroom, she finds an exit sign to her right and pushes the door open onto a side street, runs as fast as she possibly can.

..

She sits on a bench. Observes the scenes in front of her. It’s Friday night, crowds of drunken Londoners and tourists walk past, singing in the streets, playfully shoving each other on the pavement. Martha’s vision is hazy; it’s hard to focus, her balance uncertain, oscillating from left to right and back again as she looks at her feet.

They’re bare, she realises, pale skin exposed to the night breeze. There’s a cut, on the side of her toe: it bleeds, like the one at her brow. She keeps having to wipe blood away from her face and it keeps coming back, her fingers tinted red; she rubs them on her jeans. There’s something not right about her, sitting here, limbs shaking, but the thoughts and images in her head are fuzzy and Martha can’t put her finger on what led her here, exactly. “Taxi!” she shouts at no one in particular; the cars don’t stop, keep speeding in front of her eyes. She looks around; a homeless man stands in front of her. She tries to narrow her eyes, focus, can’t really see his face.

“You alright, love?” he asks. She jumps at the sound of his voice and slides on the bench, away from him.

“Yeah,” she nods, trying to make her voice sound even, convincing. Eventually, she hears him trudge away.

She’s clutching her handbag. It’s wet, smells like beer. Out of habit, she fishes out her mobile, turns it on - a dead weight in her hand - doesn’t remember it ever being this heavy. A loud succession of ringing and beeping sounds welcome her with dozens of missed emails and messages, hundreds of notifications popping before her eyes. She squints, trying to read some of them, but the letters just blend into one another; they make her feel dizzy.

Her surroundings are still out of focus, like trapped in an old, dirty lens; she’s afloat, notices it gets worse when she closes her eyes, tries not to. Martha can’t recall how she got here, or why, really, and suddenly the urge to call someone becomes overpowering, like that need she feels to text Clive whenever she gets very, very drunk. I’ll call Billy, she decides, because he’s a good friend, and he cares, and he always says he loves her. She doesn’t remember the last time she said it back, and she should, really, because he should know, right now, that she’s his friend too, because love is so, so important, and nice, she thinks.

Her hands shake, the letters on the screen undecipherable, but the tips of her fingers somehow manage to enter the word ‘bukly’ into the search bar, and Billy’s contact details pop up. She taps his name, smiles when she hears the ringing on the other end of the line. It’s late, she tells herself, he’s probably not going to pick up. She’ll leave a message, she decides, breathes, will try not to slur too much in her speech. The ringing goes off, once, twice, three times.

“Hello?”

She recognises the voice. It’s not Billy’s. Martha moves the phone from her ear to the front of her eyes, extends her arm as far as she can, tries to read the name displayed. Has she misdialled? No, it says Billy, there, on the screen, but then it’s not Billy on the phone, so why is it not –

She places the phone back against her ear, exhales. “Hello?” the voice says, again, and suddenly the memories come tumbling down on her drunken brain: Billy was in hospital again, and she was there too, and then –

Billy, not Billy, Billy isn’t there anymore, Billy’s –

A strangled gasp escapes her mouth. “Marth?” the voice asks, wary.

She drops the phone by her side.

“Martha!” the voice calls into the receiver again; she hears it even through the noise of the cars. Slowly, she picks the mobile up, examines its broken screen, puts it back against her ear.

“He’s dead, Clive,” she says, her speech slurred, tears streaming down her face.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s dead, Marth. What’s going on? You alright?”

Even through her drunkenness, she recognises the worry in Clive’s voice, can imagine him clenching his jaw, his words cautious. Her heart thunders in her chest, hands shaking; it’s hard to hold onto her phone, loud, pathetic sobs wounding her mouth. Get a grip, the voice in her head says but she can’t, feels like someone just plunged their hand into her stomach and is violently pulling her guts out. A memory replays in front of her eyes, Clive gesturing and she hears him shouting at her, earlier, can’t make out what he said, or why, and how the fuck did she get here?

“No,” she just hears herself say into the phone, finally, tears streaming down her face. “I’m not alright, no.”

“Marth, where are you?” Clive asks. She can hear him move as he speaks, switching the phone from ear to ear.

She looks around. Really looks around for the first time since she sat down. It feels very familiar, somehow, with the river, and the trees, and the dark gates. “Thames,” she says, adds. “Middle Temple Lane.”

She hears a sigh of relief, holding the phone close to her ear. “Okay, I’m still in Chambers; I’ll be there in a minute, do not move.”

The line goes dead. She feels like being a good girl, tonight, so she does as instructed, tries not to move. It’s hard, though, because her head keeps spinning and her body shifts from left to right like the pendulum of a clock. It’s funny how white her feet are against the dark pavement, maybe she should put her shoes back on, then her feet won’t be so white anymore, it would be prettier, she thinks, and where are her shoes, anyway?

“Marth!” A shout, from the other side of the street. Miss! she thinks, and: Billy.

She looks up and it’s Clive, running towards her; he walks in the middle of the road, cars furiously hooting at him. Before she knows it, he’s squatting down next to her, taking off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders. Her lips quiver, face twisted in a painful grimace.

“Jesus, Marth, you’re bleeding,” he says, his thumb touching her face, blood colouring his finger. “What the hell happened?”

However drunk he thought she was going to be, she realises he didn’t expect to find her hunched over like this, teary and shaking, and barefoot in the middle of the night. She wipes a tear away from her eyes with the back of her hand, stares at the tips of her fingers. “I want to go home,” her voice pleads, breaking.

“Yeah, let’s get you home.” His tone is soft, familiar, soothing. She sees his gaze drift to the road next to them. “Can you walk?”

She smiles, weak, nods. Clive pulls her up to her feet; she leans onto him as they wobble closer to the street. Her legs are shaking, her hands are shaking; he drapes an arm over her shoulder. She shivers a little, a cab pulling over as he hails it, helping her inside.

They’re silent, throughout the ride. She keeps her eyes focused on the road, her stomach disagreeing with the twists and turns the car seems to take; she briefly covers her mouth with her hand. When they get to her building, he grabs her keys from her handbag before helping her out and leading her past her front door. Stepping into the hallway, she suddenly feels the taste of wine crowd the back of her throat and she runs down to the bathroom faster than she ever thought was possible.

.

Martha’s still retching over the toilet a few minutes later, the sickness coming in waves, leaving a gross taste at the back of her throat. There’s the wine and the beer, and the shots of vodka she’s had; every gag hurts her empty stomach.

When Clive walks in, a few minutes later, she’s pushing on the flush, sitting back on her heels; he hands her a glass of water and she takes it, silent, steals a sip, waits to see if she’s going to puke again - doesn’t. Her whole body aches as they sit down, she against the wall, Clive about a metre from her, his back resting against the doorjamb. A hand runs through her hair, sigh heavy out of her mouth. Martha doesn’t feel stone-cold sober, really, and the Earth still spins a bit around her, but she feels better, on the whole. And yet, so much worse.

“God,” she sighs, looking down at her hands.

Clive smiles, a short, nervous laugh quickly escapes his mouth. “Yeah,” he says, cautiously eyeing her. There is a small plastic package in his palm; he slides it over to her on the floor. “For your -” he starts. His finger touches the side of his face, over his eyebrow; she understands he means hers.

They’re Band-Aids, she notes, nods as she pulls one from the box. “Thanks,” she says, barely daring to look at him.

“It’s okay,” he just says, shrugs. “You can go back to hating me tomorrow.”

There’s no animosity in his voice when he speaks; she briefly wonders if she should say something, negate his words, tell him that she doesn’t hate him, that it’s more complicated than that. Tell him he should hate her, really, because she hates herself, but her brain’s tired, and she can’t find the words, so Martha stays silent, just looks down at her hands flat against her thighs. “Why’d you have Billy’s phone?” she finally asks, finds the silence oppressive with all the thoughts in her head.

“We just asked to keep it for a bit,” he breathes, awkward. “In case someone who doesn’t –” A pause. “In case someone tries to call him instead of Chambers.”

“Oh.”  

It makes sense, she thinks, and he has the decency not to ask why she called Billy in the first place. God, how drunk must she have been to forget that – “What happened, Marth?”

Her gaze catches his and they wait, immobile, like children playing statues. His look dares her to move, speak but instead, she’s quiet for a bit, looks to the wall, hugs her knees to her chest. Her body moves with every breath she takes; it feels surreal, to be here. When Brown Hair hit the side of her face with the metal soap container, it occurred to her that he might kill her.  

Martha knew that Clive would ask, so she knows what to say. Has practiced it, in her head, ever since she remembered, in the taxicab, when it began to feel safe again, hands suddenly still. She remembered everything, from the fingers she hooked on the belt hoops of his trousers to his hand in her pants, to her kick in his nuts. Maybe she brought this upon herself, didn’t she? Self-destruction, or something along those lines, isn’t that what Clive argued, actually, when she took on Sean’s case? She’s not sure, not sure of anything, other than the fact that this is all her fault.

Martha sighs, counts the number of tiles between Clive and her: three horizontal, two down. Not much, really, but he feels further than he’s ever been. “I fell,” she lies. “I got drunk and I fell.”

“Okay.” Honestly, she looks at him and doesn’t know if he believes her, or if she believes him when he acts like he does. In 1999, after she slept with him the first time and told him she didn’t want to be one of his girls, she clenched her jaw and waited in her pencil skirt, legs still bare underneath, wearing a white bra with flowers embroidered on the fabric between her breasts and nothing over it. She waited for him to add a but at the end of his sentence when he said she wouldn’t be, but he never did.

Instead, he backed her against the doorframe, hands on her face, and kissed her: ‘It’s already done, Marth. You’re just going to have to trust me, now,’ he added with a smirk.

It sounded so easy, to him; she always wished she could have explained what it was like to be her. To be scared, cautious, unsure of ever being able to depend on people. She never said, though, and maybe in light of recent events she was right not to. But then, the voice in her head argues, if she never really trusted him, why does the betrayal hurt so much, leaving open gashes beneath her skin?

Clive catches her look, now, nods, but doesn’t move. They sit in silence for a few more minutes, the both of them engrossed in their own thoughts and yeah, she considers it. Considers Brown Hair and his hands on her hips, groping at her arse, considers telling him. There’s something holding her back, though, the words Harriet quoted and the belief that Martha had in Clive that evaporated when he stopped being her best friend, stopped joking about how she meant more to him than anyone else.  

Her breathing tames, eventually, limbs relaxed; she catches herself yawning loudly a few moments later, hears him laugh from his spot against the doorjamb. “What time is it?” she asks vaguely, suppressing another yawn.

He glances at his watch. “Two-thirty,” he says, smiling. “I think we’re past your bed time.”

She laughs, lets herself nod.

“Come on,” he says, pushing on his hands to haul himself up. “I’ll go get you more water and some ibuprofen for tomorrow.”

.

Later, she’s sitting on her bed when Clive knocks softly against the open door, clean face, clean teeth, clean clothes, having dropped liberal amounts of antiseptic on her wounds. He walks into the room somewhat shyly, carefully lays a glass down on her nightstand, sets a couple of pills next to it. He retreats, a few steps, walking back towards the door and: it’s been a weird day, she wants to tell him. A weird year, hasn’t it?  There’s a look of loneliness on his face that she’s grown quite accustomed to, over the months, and Martha wonders if they ever reached an unspoken agreement that whatever they had had come to an end, or if it was all her fault, or his, rather than no one’s in particular. She doesn’t even know if it’s a bad thing, really, that she can’t trust him, anymore. She just knows it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need him.

Martha speaks before she has time to think, stares straight into his eyes.

“Can you stay?”

She feels stupid, childish for even asking, and she’s got no right to, considering the screams and blows they’ve inflicted on each other, but she really, really doesn’t want to be alone, tonight. Doesn’t think she blinks before he answers, either. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll just –” he signals, pointing to the door with his head, pointing to the living room, she knows, to her couch. The thing is, she doesn’t really want him on the couch. She wants him close, close enough that she won’t be alone, that he’ll be able to scare off the monsters under her bed. She wants to feel the weight of his body at her side, the mattress sinking as he moves, soft, mumbled words escaping his mouth. Clive speaks in his sleep, she’s learnt over the years, remembers laughing to herself as he told her about the elephant that Billy had just brought into Chambers. That, and having herself slept on her couch for the three days her mum was in London last year, she doesn’t really want to inflict that particular uncomfortable back torture on someone his size.

She shakes her head at him. “No,” she says. “Stay here. It won’t be the first time we’ve slept together anyway.”

It’s a little bit of a joke but this time, she doesn’t think she breathes before he smiles and answers: “Okay.”

She climbs onto her side of the bed as he steps out of his clothes, pretends not to look when he bends over, shirtless, to untie his shoes, the muscles in his stomach flexing with the movement. He slides into bed, turning the bedside lamp off, settling next to her.

He lies on his side, looking directly into her eyes in the dark; the moon shades a soft light over his face. Martha smiles weakly, her features close to his, reminds herself of the present moment. The present moment is good, she thinks, safe.

She must still look shaken, though, or anxious, because she sees his lips move, his voice whisper. “Hug?” he asks and she puffs out a quiet chuckle, nods, her hair slightly falling into her face. He lifts his arm up under the quilt as she turns around, lies down with her back to his chest, spooning into him. She feels his fingers softly stroking her scalp through her hair and she must fall asleep like that, she guesses, because she doesn’t remember anything else.

.

Until, well. Well, well, well.

Martha Costello awakes to a deathly pounding in her head.

Frankly, it feels like her whole brain is being compressed between two plates of granite, something that extends from the back of her skull to the bones in her jaw; she groans, eyes closed, turns around, attempts to fall back to sleep.

It takes her a while to fully emerge, muster up the strength to open her eyes. The room is dark, blinds still shut; she can see the sun hitting the back of them if she squints. Clive’s gone from her side but she can hear kitchen noises coming from outside her bedroom door, the memories of the night before slowly coming back to her.

She weighs the pros and cons of getting up. Pro: she’ll be able to down the water and the tablets that still sit on her bedside table, and maybe get coffee in the kitchen. Con: she’s not sure her stomach will appreciate the move. Armed with the knowledge that she’ll have to surface eventually, if only to pee, she hoists herself up, carefully flinging her legs to the side of her bed, her palms resting flat by her sides. Her alarm clock reads 9:32.

Slowly, Martha drinks the water, swallows the tablets, decides she’ll pull herself up when the clock gets to 35. Makes it out the door a couple of minutes later, the sun violently attacking her face; her eyes squint. She hears Clive’s voice coming from the kitchen, walks down the corridor and into it as he speaks.

“Someone’s emerging,” he says, holding out a cup of coffee. She takes it, gladly, steals a sip. Her stomach rumbles. “I made breakfast,” he adds.

She looks around, looks at him standing in front of the sink. He’s washing a pan, a plate with sunny side up eggs, beans and bacon sitting next to him. She’s tempted to point out that she’s got a dishwasher – anything to reduce the time spent doing household chores to a minimum (she actually has a maid that comes in once a week because she can’t be bothered to do it herself; sometimes, she even sends her shopping for food) - but decides against making the effort to speak. Her head rests between her hands as she sighs, she hears him sitting down in front of her, pushing the plate in her direction. “You should eat something,” he insists.

She shakes her head, barely dares to bite on a slice of bread, not knowing if her stomach will be willing to keep anything down. It strangely reminds her of being pregnant. All she gives him is a sigh in lieu of an answer, makes herself sip more coffee.

“Believe me, you should –”

“I’ve been hungover before, Clive.”  

The words come out snappier than she intends, but she’s tired, and every time he speaks, the pounding in her head grows stronger. She sighs, shakes her head, thinks about the way he saw her, last night, the way he came to get her even after what she told him, hit him in the face and screamed in front of everybody. She had reason to, sure, but it doesn’t mean that he owed her anything, and especially not the right to let her fall asleep in his arms.

“Sorry,” she says.  He’s there, doesn’t have to be.

They sit in silence for a while, she with her coffee, he periodically picking at her plate. There’s always been comfort in Clive’s silences. They used to work for hours on end, the both of them holed up in their room in Chambers, going through mountains of unused. With Sean, every time he looked at her and didn’t say anything, she wondered what he was thinking, and what he could possibly be hiding from her. Before she left for uni, he got her a bike, a token of forgiveness for one of his sins: it was one those old race ones with thin tyres and a crossbar in the middle. She’d jump on and off it as she rushed in and out of class, cruised her way through Manchester without once touching the handlebar. Neither of them had the money, she knew, so she wondered for a long time who he’d nicked it from, never dared to ask.

“Can I ask you something?” Clive’s fork stops all movement when she speaks; he lays it down on the side of the plate, looks up at her.

“Yeah.”

Martha catches his gaze, purses her lips. She thinks sometimes, there are questions in her head that she doesn’t want to know the answer to. That might just be one of them. “What Harriet said: did you say it?”

I don’t give a crying fuck about Martha Costello, the words replay in her head. If we have to throw her under the bus, then so be it. She doesn’t have – It didn’t sound too bad, yesterday, because her mind was focused on Billy, but now - “Marth –” Clive sighs.

“Oh, don’t fucking Marth me,” she fires back at him, quick, has always been a hot-blooded creature, Martha Costello, going from tame to fiery in a matter of seconds. “It’s a yes or no question, Clive.”

He stares at her, then, honest, seems to brace for impact. “Yes.”

The blow isn’t what he expects, though, by the looks of it. She doesn’t shout, or cry. She laughs. Not loud or chilling, not on the edge of tears either, like she did when he told about the jacket. It’s a quiet puff, almost like a sigh, sad, crushed. She knew it was the truth, from the way Harriet said it, and she knows why it hurt as well.

Clive sighs, glances up at her. “It’s not –” he tries to defend; she kills it in the egg.

“We almost had one, Clive,” she tells him. He doesn’t seem to get it before she speaks. “A child to feed.”

She doesn’t know why it hurts so bad, looking at him like this, looking like he didn’t even realise. She doesn’t know if it would have hurt more, had he used the words deliberately, or if negligence, ignorance, was enough to break her heart. Clive sighs, quickly, shakes his head and: “God, Marth, I didn’t mean –” he starts, but she’s not listening to him.

In an attempt to explain, convey whatever he’s trying to tell her, keep her here with him, he touches her arm, over the table. His hand is quick, light, barely even there, familiar and almost automatic, like the hundreds of times he’s touched her before. Yet, when she feels his skin against hers for the briefest moment, it’s like an electric shock in her body. She can’t explain why it happens now (she was fine when he held her, last night), but she retreats away from him at a speed she didn’t even think was possible. She takes her hand back and pushes her chair from the table; it almost falls in her rush to get up, stepping away until her back hits the wall behind her. The whole room goes quiet; if she could, she thinks she’d run even further away. The look of shock and alarm on his face stop her, though. His startled stare reminds her of where she is, and where she isn’t (in a pub, in the dark). Her limbs shake and her heart races in her chest; she brings her hand to her mouth – there are tears, at the back of her eyes, she finds it hard not to choke.

A moment passes. She stops anxiously scrutinising her surroundings from left to right like a ewe waiting for the wolves, slightly relaxes. You’re safe, a voice reaffirms, over and over in her head, and she realises Clive is the one who looks terrified, now, at the idea of having done something wrong, having broken her, somehow. It’s not you, she thinks. It’s not that, but the words are stuck in her throat, like glue, preventing her from breathing. He stands up, walks around the table, cautious, one step at a time, closer to her; Martha feels like a kid in the ICU, being diagnosed from afar. She looks up; it stops him, a couple metres out. She can’t say, yet, can’t tell him what the hell possessed her to freak out like this, but it occurs to her that she can show him. Slowly, she reaches for the zipper of her jumper, pulls it down and lets it slide off her shoulders, drop to the floor. Clive stills, then, sits on the table in front of her and runs a hand over his face.

She’s a mess of black and blue. Saw it this morning when she got up and looked in the mirror - sure, her skin has always bruised easily (he’s dropped enough kisses on her neck in the past to know that), but it looks like she’s fallen off a horse and been dragged about for a hundred metres before someone came to save her. Except, well, no. On her stomach, there’s a punch, a round mark the size of a fist. On her arm, there are the tips of fingers, five imprints against her skin. It’s not just the gash on her forehead, it’s a film of last night storyboarded across her body.

Clive doesn’t move. Simply looks as she stands there, in her bra, little sound coming from his mouth. “Marth,” he just manages to say, low, barely above a whisper. The windows are open, in her kitchen; she hears a bird in the tree outside sing. “You didn’t fall, did you?”

The ghost of a smile forms across her lips. She shakes her head: “No.”

Clive sits back on the table, quiet for a while, looking at her as she bends down to pick up her jumper from the floor. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says, again.

He nods: “Okay,” and doesn’t add anything else. Closes the case then and there until maybe at some point, she’ll want to reopen it. For now, he stays with her the whole day and they talk, talk about anything but that. He watches TV as she showers and changes out of her pyjamas, makes her food that she finally dares to eat. They play cards with the one deck she owns where all the tens are missing. She’s always thought they were good at pretending, at separating different sections of their lives, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s just about being, together, every once in a while. If she had to list in her head all the grudges she could hold against him, she wouldn’t be able to look at his face anymore. It would probably be the same for him. But they need each other like she needs water in her system, and so when she opens her eyes, she prefers to see that he’s there. She knows this isn’t permanent, she knows that tomorrow, she’ll probably go back to hating his guts and wanting to run but right now, in the quiet of her apartment, she likes acting normal, with him.

In the evening, she hands him a beer and sits with her legs folded on her couch, watching. The cards are still scattered messily across her coffee table; Clive folds them into a neat pile, wraps a rubber band around them. “Why did you call Billy?” he asks.

She drinks a sip of her water, thinks about it. Last night, on the banks of the Thames, she called Billy because she wanted to tell him she loved him. She wanted to hear to hear his voice, she wanted – “I wanted to talk to a friend.”

Quiet, Clive nods, drinks. She expected hurt, or anger, but it looks like he just understands. Doesn’t look at her, though.

“I miss him,” she adds and sees the man next to her smile, bittersweet, and remembers his boyish grin when she met him, standing outside of Chambers with a cigarette between her fingers.

‘Hello?’ he said, eyeing her up and down like he wanted to know who the fuck she was, hadn’t yet figured out she was the other one. She breathed out, smoke filling the air between them.

‘Hi.’

She smiles at the memory as his beer lands on her table again; he looks at her, a quizzical look on his face. Martha misses Billy, a gaping hole in her heart that’s never being filled. “I should have told them to stop the treatment right away,” she speaks, glancing at her lap. “It’s what he wanted.”

“You need to stop blaming yourself for every little thing –”

She’s quick, glancing up at him. “So, do you,” she tells him, smiles. “I blame you enough for the both of us.”

That makes him laugh and: “Ah, yeah, I guess,” he says, shakes his head at her with a grin on his face. His beer bottle clinks against the side of her glass. “Marth, what I told Harriet –”

“Forget it –” She doesn’t want an explanation, doesn’t want -

“She said I’d been in love with you since the day I met you,” he forces her to hear, anyway. Martha’s breath catches in her throat; she looks away, didn’t want to know that, doesn’t want to know that. She likes putting her head in the sand, likes the days like the one they just had, talking about everything, and most importantly nothing. “I didn’t want her to be right. That’s all it was. I never thought of –” he trails off, catches her gaze. The baby, she reads in his.

A part of her wonders if he still thinks that, if a part of him still loves her, as he said, or if he ever really knew what that even meant. If Harriet accused him of the same sin, today, would he tell the same lie? “I was angry, and Sean was in jail, and Billy gone, and I -” she admits, watching their argument from yesterday and the rest of the evening stream before her eyes. “I lost it.”

“You scared me,” Clive says, staring right at her. Through her, it feels.

She nods, glances down, smiles. “I scared me.”

They’re silent, for a short while, until he catches her gaze again and smiles. “Marth?”

“Yeah?”

The night has fallen over London, finally, and the light of her living room reflects in his eyes, something discreet but reliable; she can see him, if she wants to. After her dad passed away, he’d gotten into the habit of telling her the lamest jokes he could think of, just to make her smile. She sets her glass down on her table, elbows in her lap. “Why can’t a bike stand on its own?” he asks.

She raises a confused eyebrow as the possibilities run through her head. Well, if it’s got a kickstand –

He waits until she looks up at him, shrugs her ignorance. “Because it’s two tired.”

Martha Costello bursts out a laugh, the first real one since Billy died.

Chapter Text

iii.

But I have seen the same, I know the shame in your defeat. But I will hold on hope and I won’t let you choke on the noose around your neck.

The Cave – Mumford & Sons

On the phone to her mum after her dad passed away, Martha lied. It was late afternoon on a Wednesday; she was home, working, took the call and stayed there, silent. Her mother wept (quiet, mournful tears) barely audible on the line. ‘I can drive home tonight,’ Martha offered, quick, knowing that she couldn’t, wouldn’t. She had court, the next day. Had a life to get to.

‘No, honey,’ her mum said. Martha exhaled. ‘I’ll be fine.’

After Clive leaves, that evening, the waiting game begins. She has a case to get through (her client in deep need of help), before she can go North, visit her mum, and board a plane to the other side of the world. It remains the plan, for now, and as a result, Martha lives on autopilot, waiting until she can get out, can’t just leave poor Robin and her mother without a brief. A defence case wouldn’t get picked up in Chambers, it’d be returned to some other set, and there’s a part of her (ego, maybe?) that can’t quite accept that.

It’s hard to focus. Exhaustion plagues her days but at night, she can’t sleep, brain wired, and when awake, Billy’s on her mind all the time. The memories clutter in her brain like reels of a movie she doesn’t want to play. Things get mixed up. She has nightmares (daymares, maybe, somewhere at the edge of consciousness): Billy is missing. She’s looking for him around town and she’s drunk, in a pub, lies on the floor with the taste of blood at the back of her throat. Pain shoots through her stomach; someone laughs, suddenly on top of her. She can only see a form, dark, tries to kick it off but it stays there, hands on her skin, and when she looks to her side, Billy appears, mouth and eyes wide open: dead.

She doesn’t know what to do, so she works. Defends.

.

She doesn’t avoid Clive, not anymore. They were mostly silent, after he made her laugh, that night, but when he offered to stay over again, she declined, swore she’d be fine.

(She’s her mum’s little girl, after all, too.)

‘Half of Chambers didn’t vote for you, you know?’ she spoke, though, before he left, as she handed him a second beer, sat back down on her couch. He’d just hung up the phone with Harriet, the conversation tense. To his credit, Clive didn’t step away to take the call, let Martha listen as he argued, sighing at something Harriet had said. ‘With Harriet, you need to understand each other,’ Martha added, catching his gaze. Alan had that, with Billy. They had a relationship, something strong, that inspired trust. ‘Build some sort of bond, make each other happy. Not look like some couple who argues at every opportunity.’

Clive smirked, raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Lessons in Chambers politics from Martha Costello?’

She rolled her eyes, then, but fair, she thought: she’s never been quite too good at that particular game. She knows the theory, though and: ‘You know I’m right,’ she instructed, because in truth, she was.

A quiet laugh left Clive’s mouth, nodding after a while, and something resembling a wince crossed over his face when he looked at her, breathed. ‘Fuck,’ he said, quick, setting his beer down on the table after taking a sip. ‘I wish there was, like, a training period, you know? Before you leave,’ he paused, nervously rubbing the side of his middle finger with his thumb. ‘To learn how to do things without you.’

Martha doesn’t know what possessed her to smile, then, look up at him and say: ‘I’m still here. For now.’

.

They’re on the phone every night, after that.

Not necessarily for long, and not that she means it to happen but it sort of does. She’s okay, really, but still, she calls him on Sunday night, after spending the day working on Robin’s case, going through witness statements and the police investigation, trying to find enough material to support her argument. It’s nice to stay focused, think about something other than Billy, or Clive, or foreign hands on her arse for a moment (she’s always been the kind of person to find solace in her work, in that ability to concentrate on something and forget the world around her), but when the sky gets dark outside her window, she feels the need to hear Clive’s voice against her ear. He offers to come over and shows up on her doorstep with take-away and files to read, only goes home after midnight. There are more lame jokes, and light, shy laughs exchanged. It doesn’t solve anything, but it helps.

Clive has a case in the RCJ that week, so they mostly talk about work. They don’t talk about the night Billy died, don’t talk about anything and Martha’s mostly quiet - they’re precarious; she weighs every word before speaking and he watches her like milk about to boil, spill all over the kitchen. The bruises on her body turn into a yellowish canvas and she pokes holes in his accusation the way he pokes holes in her defence; she’s always liked to see the kind of work that he’s able to put in, the way his brain bites into an issue, detached and rational. He says prosecuting is a different side to her angels and as he teases her about it, she wonders if he was the sort of little boy who dreamed himself up as a copper or a fireman, that kind of hero complex engrained in his brain like her need to constantly prove everyone wrong.

(Right and wrong are very versatile elements, she’s learnt, depending on where you stand and where you come from.)

.

Clive doesn’t initiate contact, either physical or otherwise: she’s always the one to phone, at the end of the day, and if he did, she’s not sure she’d pick up. “I think I’ll go see my mum,” she tells him, one night. The windows to her flat are open, a light breeze coursing through. She’s wearing an oversized jumper over a pair of leggings. “Before I leave.”

Clive is silent at the other end of the line. Drinks.

She hasn’t been sleeping well, lately, (nightmares, stuck in her brain, she likes to tell herself they’ll go away - the sleeping pills, she finds, make them worse) so when Clive comes by, Martha sometimes passes out on the couch while he cooks in her kitchen, likes to hear the sounds generated by someone else’s presence. One evening, she hears him letting himself in, coming back from getting groceries; it kind of wakes her up, a vague sense of her surroundings. There are papers, casefiles all strewn around her; she let them fall on her chest when her eyes shut, earlier, sleep deprived. Her dream was sweet, this time around, quiet – she can’t quite remember what it was but wishes she could get back into it, turns onto her side, her fists tight on top of the cushions.

“It all happened so fast, you know?” Clive says, shutting the door behind him. She barely raises an eyelid before closing it again; he’s on the phone, she can tell. His voice lowers when he spots her on the sofa, barely above a whisper. “With Billy passing and everything, I just – I don’t know. The Head of Chambers thing, it hasn’t really sunk in, yet.”

Martha could signal that she’s awake, true, but she doesn’t want to interrupt, wonders who he’s talking to. She keeps her eyes closed, listens to him move, head straight towards her kitchen. He drops the bags of take away on the island, leans against the counter.

“Thanks, Mum,” he says.

She should have known. There was familiarity in his voice, in the tired sigh that left his mouth. Clive’s always been a mummy’s boy, she knows, remembers mocking him years ago, listening to him cancelling a trip to his parents’ full of apologies and Mum-I’ll-be-in-next-week-I-promise, after Martha turned up on his doorstep, the day following her thirty-fifth birthday. Her eyes were red, she’d been crying, wasn’t quite sure why. It’s not like it was unexpected, really, not like it wasn’t her fault.

Her suitcase was at her feet, he was coming back from his morning run. 8 a.m. on a Saturday, and sat next to her, unstrapped his iPod from his arm, pulling his earphones out.

‘I got dumped,’ she announced. His gaze caught hers; he raised an eyebrow.

‘Did you tell him?’

She wore Converse trainers, that day, an old pair; the soles mostly grey, partly peeling from the fabric. The sun fell on the façade of Clive’s old building, the last days of summer blending into the autumn chill. ‘No,’ she spoke, her voice soft, exhausted.

Jerôme had been her first real relationship since Sean. (Embarrassing, right? In her bloody thirties.) She’d met him at a conference. The right to a fair trial under the ECHR, children being judged as adults: T. and V. v. United Kingdom, ten years on. He was on the panel, she remembers, quite sure of himself; it irritated her more than the fact that he was right. She argued the devil’s advocate’s point for a good ten minutes, standing in front of the whole conference room, just to wipe that smug smile off his face. He invited her out for coffee, afterwards, and: ‘Just so we’re clear: I actually agree with you,’ she told him as soon as she sat down. He smiled – not a bad smile, she thought to herself - and nodded.

‘I guessed that, yes.’

At first, he wasn’t permanent. Not in her life, and not in London. He’d take the train in from Belgium on certain weekends or when his firm would fly him over (she soon discovered that defending children in Strasbourg wasn’t his main occupation – ‘Competition law,’ he said, that night, when coffee turned into drinks at the pub next door. ‘Magic Circle.’ She rolled her eyes, laughed. ‘Please don’t hold it against me,’) would stay a few days and disappear. She liked that, bittersweet memories haunting her mind after they broke up, wondering over and over what the hell happened that made it impossible for her to just keep him. Clive mocked her relentlessly, called him her ‘French beau’ (Do you know where Belgium is, Clive?), but in the end, she liked him, she really did.

The firm gave him a six months contract to stay in London on a case involving price fixing in big pharma. Six months then turned into a year. Two years. He started talking about staying, making partner, liked the people he worked with, not the idea of going back to Belgium. He joked about them going steady, kids; she withdrew. Freaked. Fucked up.

She’d spent over two years of her life trying and failing to fall in love with someone who genuinely loved her. Fucking pathetic, Mar, innit? She shook her head at Clive, sighed. ‘He knew.’

‘Sorry.’

She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. That Jérôme hadn’t even found out, he’d found her. Sitting in their living room at seven o’clock in the morning, dried tear tracks along her face. She’d gotten home around three but hadn’t found the strength to go to bed, lie next to him. He always got breakfast on the way to work (often did overtime on the weekends – until I make partner, he’d say) so was all ready to go, eyed his coat on the rack before he glanced at her. She thinks he saw it on her face, just sat on the coffee table in front of her, sighed.

Martha shut her eyes, held back more tears. When she opened them again, his gaze was still on hers. He looked like he was about to cry, too. ‘I’ll just take my stuff,’ she said, her voice shaking, nervously rubbing her hands.

‘Clive?’ It was the only question Jérôme seemed to have. She sighed, didn’t say.

‘Does it matter?’

‘I think it matters to you,’ he told her, then. They were both silent; it occurred to her that maybe, it did, yeah. ‘We could talk about it, Martha. We can work this out.’

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? He would probably have forgiven her. She stayed silent, looked to her feet until she felt his fingers under her chin, lifting it up to look at him.

‘Je t’aime, tu sais ?’ he just said, before he left. (I love you, you know?) 

So, when Clive apologised, on his doorstep, Martha wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but couldn’t push the words out of her mouth. It really wasn’t, though, it was all on her. He’d kissed her, sure, but the decision to kiss him back, was all hers. ‘Can I stay at yours for a bit?’ she asked, after a while, nodding at her suitcase. He chuckled, arched an eyebrow at her.

‘Well, since you’re already here, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?’

She nudged his shoulder, playfully rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll go somewhere else if that’s what you want.’

Clive laughed, then, and wrapped an arm around her, kept her close as he kissed the top of her head. ‘Of course not,’ he spoke and Martha put her head on his shoulder, feeling the rhythm of his breaths next to her.

They stayed like that for a bit, watching the traffic move in front of his building, London slowly waking up with them. He was sweaty, coming back from his morning run, she sniffed him and frowned, lifting her head to look at him. ‘You smell,’ she said. He burst out laughing, jokingly pushing her away from him as he stood and helped her up, grabbing her suitcase and carrying it on top of the stairs.

‘Oh, Martha Costello,’ Clive joked. ‘You really know how to win a man’s heart over.’

Still, though, he let her in and called his mum, made his apologies and promised not to miss next week’s Sunday roast.

Martha can feel Clive’s eyes on her, now, in her sitting room years later as he talks to his mother and she pretends to be asleep, keeps her body as still as possible. “Martha, she’s –” he starts, stops. “I think we’re both a bit lost, right now,” he admits.

.

On Thursday morning, when her trial ends and the jury retires to discuss its verdict, Muriel hugs her again, standing outside court in the baking hot oven summer seems to have turned the city into. His Honour told them to give up on court dress today so it’s funny how what may well be her last day in court, Martha spends in normal clothes.

“What are our chances?” her client’s mother asks after watching her daughter being taken back into custody yet another time, looking like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. For the first time in her professional life, Martha doesn’t know what to respond.

Usually, she’s got this list of phrases she uses, they come out of her mouth rehearsed, calm, no matter the circumstances. ‘Don’t worry about it now,’ she says, or ‘what she’s going to need, whatever happens, is your support’. And when worst comes to worst, when they insist, she ignores the real numbers in her gut, the ones years of experience and verdicts scream at her and says ‘50/50,’ quick, affirmative, and hopes they won’t ever ask again.

Yet, now, standing outside court smoking the last cigarette in her pack, in the back of her head, she can’t even muster up those secret numbers she wouldn’t ever tell. “I think we did good,” she tells Muriel, breathing out. “But, I really don’t want to get your hopes up, okay? We’ll only know when the verdict’s in,” she pauses, reads Muriel’s next question on her face. “Not before Monday, at the earliest.”

Muriel nods, her eyes closed, taking a drag off of one of those e-cigarettes; it leaves a funny scent lingering in the air. Martha catches herself glaring, glances away.

“I’m trying to quit,” the other woman explains, taking another drag. “She’s going to need me there longer than I thought.”

The butt of Martha’s cigarette falls to the floor; she kills it with the sole of her shoe. If anything, she’d say the e-cig smells like those chemical bubble-gum flavoured ice creams would, if they actually had a smell. “Yeah, I tried once,” she admits. “Didn’t stick.”

Another puff of smoke clouds the air. “Yeah? How long did you last?”

Her nails are bitten raw, Martha observes, tobacco stains still visible at the edge of her fingers; she can’t have stopped longer than a week ago. “Fourteen weeks,” she says, the words rolling off her tongue, honest, quick, her glance directed at the floor. It was the first thing she did after stepping out of the hospital, went through an entire pack in one evening. “Listen,” she speaks again, stepping away from the door, a couple of steps down, changing the subject. She doesn’t think Muriel notices the tension in her shoulders. “I won’t be in London tomorrow, but don’t hesitate to call me if you need to, okay?” she says, trying to sound convincing. Muriel smiles in response, weak and fragile, nods; Martha makes herself reach for her arm, gives her a touch of support. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything, alright?”

The other woman nods: “Thank you,” she says, looking into her eyes. “Whatever happens, really, thank you, for everything.”

Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, Martha repeats like a motto in her head, watching her. If she believed in prayers or crossing her fingers and all that bollocks, hoping for the best, she thinks she really, really would do anything to give that woman her child back. “You’re welcome,” she says, faking a smile.

.

Sometimes, Martha indulges and lets herself forget that Billy is gone. He’s still in email threads she’s exchanged recently, on her phone, and because she never steps inside Chambers, it’s easy to trick her brain, make believe. Other times, though, she goes to Tesco, takes a bag of ground coffee to the register, wonders how the kid there smiles at her and wishes her a good day, unaffected, like he doesn’t know how lonely she feels, how hard it is for her to breathe.

Billy and she didn’t always get along, especially the first two years. She’s pretty certain he tried to talk Alan out of offering her tenancy and kept that rhetoric going on for months after that. She was dangerous, in court, unpredictable, by all standards, and didn’t even have the relations to make up for her behaviour. She wouldn’t bring in clients, Billy argued, especially not rich clients, and they were a new set, needed more cash flow than legal aid fees could provide. She overheard the both of them talking, one morning, dropping things off at work before heading to court. ‘Clive will do the networking,’ Alan said, calmly; she’s always admired that about him: his cool and collected self. ‘We’re keeping her because she was born for this job, Billy. She’ll get silk before she’s forty.’

There was silence on the other side of the door; Martha leaned against it, a discreet smile on her face, hoped no one would see her, creeping in.

Silk? Really? she thought, her heart hammering in her chest. At the time, it sounded like the most important thing in the world.

‘Women don’t get silk, Sir,’ was Billy’s simple, cutting answer.

Years later, he caught up with her at the top of Middle Temple Lane, all dolled up with her fancy new gown and that long, white, ridiculous wig he insisted she wear. ‘You’ve walked all the way to the top, Miss,’ he said, a twinkle of admiration in his eye. ‘Congratulations.’

He took her out to dinner in a fancy, Michelin-starred restaurant and they shared a bottle of expensive wine; she sipped as she watched him, smiled. ‘You didn’t like me before,’ she pointed out, caught his gaze. ‘Why?’

She never could tell what changed, in their relationship, or when it did, exactly. It felt like a gradual thing, like Billy eventually decided she’d earned her stripes, a few years into her tenancy. He laughed, dismissive, let her in on a secret. ‘I always loved you, Miss,’ he grinned, his hand upon hers. ‘Younger men just don’t like sharing their feelings, they think it makes them look weak.’

She laughed, rolled her eyes. ‘Right.’

.

“It’ll be fine,” Clive tells her, one night, on the phone, his mouth full – dinner time. “You’ll get a not guilty and everything will get back on track.”

She kind of doubts that, to tell the truth (will anything ever be as it was?) and bites her lip not to crush his spirits. He’s just lost his case in the RCJ, works real hard, that night, pretending to remain unaffected by the idea of letting a murderer run free.

“Even if I wanted to change careers,” he says, sighs. “I really don’t know what else I could do.”

She thinks of how proud he sounded, just days before, telling his mum about being elected Head of Chambers. What’s terrifying is that no matter how much she tells herself she’s leaving this all behind, she really, really, tends to agree.

.

Jerôme passed the Billy test, back in the day. He passed the Alan test, too, passed every test there was (well, except hers).

She’d had to introduce him to them all, eventually – after two years, it felt like the right thing to do, - so she’d taken him as her plus one to Shoe Lane’s Christmas party, felt his hand behind her back as they navigated around the crowd and she smiled politely, tried to partake in just the right amount of sucking up to get Billy off her back. Jerôme was everything she wasn’t - isn’t (will probably never be): handsome, charming, almost an accidental smooth talker; the bit of awkwardness in his tone made him less threatening than Clive’s sickening levels of self-confidence.

‘We should get married,’ he said, once; they’d gone to Belgium for the weekend, saw his parents and ate waffles with litres of chocolate on them. She sat in silence – the café was on a street adjacent to the Grand Place – and couldn’t figure out what to say. He laughed, after a beat, nodded. ‘Okay,’ he spoke, smirking. ‘A marginally better reaction than what I was expecting.’

Martha frowned, placed her fork by the side of her plate – wasn’t quite so hungry, anymore. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I thought you’d run off and board a train back to London straight away.’

Martha crossed her arms over her chest, tried to protect herself as best as she could. Put distance between them, too. He’d talked about kids, a few weeks before; there was no way left for her to convince herself that he wasn’t serious, anymore. ‘It’s not funny, Jerôme,’ she told him.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It’s not.’ 

Three months and a dozen more of these conversations later, she was fucking Clive against the door of their room in Chambers (the details of that night, she remembers crystal clear, stone-cold sober, unfortunately), and she thought that was probably a marginally worse reaction than the one Jerôme had been expecting. She drunk a lot, after they broke up, mostly on Clive’s couch and dime. He let her live in his flat and drink his booze (‘I cheated on him,’ she laughed, once. ‘I can’t also take the flat,’) but she slept on the sofa, alone. Nothing ever happened again between them, after that – well, she guesses, not until Nottingham.

She looks back at her Friday night, last week, and thinks that at least, back then, she had someone to turn to. She listens to him every time she calls him, always almost surprised to hear him pick up the phone, sometimes in the middle of the night (she wakes up in cold sweat and needs to speak to someone; yet, she still doesn’t dare to tell him, well, anything) and wonders if maybe, somehow, that might still be true.

.

It’s Alan who ends up phoning her about it, in the end. Martha saw the announcement on Chambers’ website a couple days ago but didn’t say anything, guesses Clive didn’t dare bring it up. He sent their old mentor do the dirty work. “I told Clive he should be the one to talk to you,” Alan tells her on Thursday around two after Martha she went home following her talk with Muriel, numbed the void in her heart with daytime TV. “But he said if he called you, there was still a 50/50 chance you wouldn’t pick up.”

Fair enough, she thinks. That’s probably right.

“Will you be at the funeral?” Alan chances, after a bit; Martha swallows heavily, mutes the telly.

“No.”

“Then come to the wake at least,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he’s leaving much room to negotiation. “It’s in Chambers at five. We’d all like to see you.”

.

The thing is: she doesn’t own that many clothes. There aren’t plenty of days in the year when she’s not at work, so apart from her white shirts and plain black pencil skirts, she owns: a pair of green trousers Clive apparently thinks make her look like a vintage lesbian, a pair of jeans so old she can’t remember buying them, a couple of evening gowns for sucking up Middle Temple events, and two casual dresses. One of them is black, so that’s the one she picks.

Her dad passed away in winter, she remembers (the 3^rd of December, date permanently engraved in her brain); their fingers went numb as they stood in the cemetery, crystal, frozen morning dew at their feet. It felt oddly fitting, like the sky, the sun, and the light all knew they had better hide.

Today, in contrast, is warm, obscenely sunny. Martha lets her handbag fall to the floor and stands in front of Chambers, finishing her cigarette in the shade of the plane tree hiding part of her view of the church. It’s 5:20 p.m.; she’s late, almost couldn’t bring herself to leave the house and yet, couldn’t bring herself not to, either. The curls of her hair stop just short of the neckline of her dress; she can feel the sun hitting her back, skin hot, shy of burning. When her cigarette dies under the sole of her shoe, she lights another one.

After her father passed away, it felt like she couldn’t talk, anymore. It felt like no one would understand. The mess in her head, the melancholy and the emptiness she felt, mixed with slight, culpable relief: she wouldn’t have to go home every other weekend, anymore, wouldn’t have to answer the same question over and over again. (‘Who are you, beautiful?’ he’d ask, every time she went up to see him.)

Around seven-thirty in the evening, after she spoke to her mum that night, she called Clive. ‘Me dad’s gone,’ she just spoke, fast, her voice slipping back into its natural tones, the ones it has when she forgets to posh herself up a bit.  

‘Are you okay?’ Clive asked.

He came over. They sat on her couch. He watched her smoke, cigarettes piling up in the ash tray, roll-ups.

‘You won’t talk to me, will you?’ he quizzed, eventually. It was about nine; she’d given him a beer and a bag of crisps. She wasn’t hungry.

‘Sorry,’ she said. Guessed that he was right, that she’d probably made him come over here, an hour-long tube ride away just to sit there in silence while she let the thoughts swirl in her brain. ‘You can go.’

He caught her gaze, then, carefully laid his beer down on the floor. She’d bought a rug to hide the holes in the carpet underneath but her moving-in money had stopped short of a coffee table. ‘Do you want me to go?’

There was something about Clive, something she’d never quite been able to pinpoint, a stillness in the dark that never appeared to fit his seemingly extroverted persona. She’d gotten drunk, laughed and had danced with him until the wee hours of the morning: Clive was fun, she knew, and a lot of games. Yet, sometimes, he looked at her and it felt like he was seeing right through her. ‘No,’ she admitted to him, her cigarette dying in the ash tray at her feet. The bare, honest truth, she thought. Martha sat back, her legs folded under her. ‘I don’t have any friends here.’

Of course, it wasn’t like she was realising this just then, but she guesses it had never really bothered her before. She’d always been a lone wolf, even in Bolton, had a handful of people she knew, sometimes confided in her one friend: Jo. Mostly, though, she had Sean. Sean who’d been in her life since she was eleven years old, had pulled her ponytail loose on the first day of secondary school, claimed it was an accident. ‘How can that be an accident?’ she’d asked, hands on her hips, fiery glare and loose blonde curls framing her face. ‘Are you an idiot?’

Clive laughed, in her flat, cleared his throat a couple of times, pointing at his own chest, mouthing: uh, me? Martha rolled her eyes at him.

‘You know what I mean,’ she countered, quick, reaching for his beer, stealing a sip. She was trying not to drink, that night, her eyes red, tears constantly threatening to spill over. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Clive per se, it was just that: ‘Every time I want to tell you something, I have to stop and think of how you could use it against me,’ she admitted, shrugged. The bottle was laid on the floor again; Clive took it back. ‘Plus, you want to sleep with me, not be my friend.’

He burst out laughing, an eyebrow raised as if surprised she’d seen through that, too. His eyes were blue, she noticed, bright blue, a kind of cobalt, like the surface of a pool come seven o’clock, when the sun fades in the background. It’d never been something she’d ever found attractive on anyone else before. ‘Are those mutually exclusive?’ he joked.

She laughed, loosely hit his arm with her palm. It came out in a burst, at first, and he enjoyed the banter with her until she looked around her flat, looked at him, at the beat-up kitchen table she’d had to load into her 1995 Renault Clio (it smelled like a tobacco jar, could barely get to sixty on the motorway); she’d driven it down here from her grandparents’ place in Bolton, two hundred miles on the M1 with the windows open and the trunk that just wouldn’t close. She took the tube into Chambers for years until she actually got a car that didn’t make her look so fucking broke. Money doesn’t buy happiness, darling, her father used to say. But it certainly contributes.

The next time she blinked, her father materialised in front of her eyes and for a short, painful second, her laughter turned into a single, broken sob, voice strangled at the back of her throat. A few tears ran down Martha’s cheeks; she rubbed them off with the back of her hand. ‘Sorry,’ she spoke, quick, embarrassed, shook her head. ‘I just – I’m just –’

Clive’s palm found the back of her hand. She felt it: casual, quick and soothing, fingers slowly tracing the lines of her veins. She wore a long uni jumper, that night; it rode halfway down her thighs and as he moved, she felt the skin of his wrist against her leg, riding down to her knee. His gaze was upon hers when she looked down, let her own fingers interlace with his. There was a moment: quiet, comfortable; she almost forgot her irresistible, panicked need to hide. Another tear ran down her cheek and she let it fall, all the way down to her chin. Clive wiped it off from her thigh when it landed, steady, healing circles against her skin.

‘I’m just sad, I guess,’ she said.

Eventually, Clive finished his beer. She’d thought he would leave, afterwards, catch the last train home but instead, he opened his mouth and spoke. ‘My father cheated,’ he said. She remembers listening to him, to the sound of his voice, breath caught in her throat. They’d never really talked about, well, anything before. ‘I mean, not like, an affair,’ he added. ‘Like, half a dozen of his secretaries, a few neighbours, my sister’s ballet teacher… Anything that was young, willing, and had reasonably sized tits.’ A sad smile reached his face; it mirrored hers, most of the time, these days. ‘Mum never left because, well, her view of divorce is –’ he trailed off, shrugged. ‘Think: the royal family in the 1950s.’

His slight chuckle allowed Martha to laugh, a bit, and it occurred to her that she hadn’t heard that sound in his mouth much before. She frowned, curious, raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

His hand was flat against her knee; she caught his stare on her. ‘I’m trying to get you talking. Is it working?’

She laughed, again, slapped his arm away playfully, shook her head at him. ‘Trading stories? I wonder where you got that from, Clive.’

He smiled; it reached his eyes. ‘I only learn from the best.’

She rolled her eyes at the flattery but still, eventually, she spoke, too, that night. He listened. She told him about how her dad knew before they did, kept his GP’s office open until he couldn’t hide the disease any longer, how she’d found him crying at three o’clock in the morning when she was sixteen, sneaking back in from a party. When her father collapsed, all of their lives did, too. Her mum had to start working; Martha left and waitressed her way through university. What’s wrong, Dad? she’d asked, that night, her heart beating fast against her chest. She thought he’d be disappointed in her – he was disappointed in him.

I don’t know where I am, Mar.

‘I’m sorry,’ Clive said, around midnight, took her hand in his again. Her dad used to call her pumpkin, like the one that turns into a luxurious coach. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

Martha kissed Clive’s lips, that night – the beginning of a long, beautiful tale – and pushed him gently until she laid on top of him on the couch, shivers running down her spine. ‘Stay,’ she muttered in his ear; his hands trailed up her skin. ‘Please.’

.

On the day of Billy’s wake, Alan is the first to notice her presence, outside Chambers. She’s caught up in her memories but he’s always had a knack for it, even when they were younger. She would purposefully keep the light low in her office, hoping he wouldn’t know, and he’d always come in, take one look at her and insist: ‘It’s past midnight. Go home, Martha.’ He leans in next to her, now, facing the church, against the stone railing. “You came,” he smiles. Black suit, black tie; they both look out of place, here, in this gorgeous weather, grieving the loss of a friend. It feels like they’re both already gone, in their own way.

She turns her head to look at him, nodding, attempting a half smile in return.

“What hap–” he starts, awkward, trails off. He’s pointing at her eyebrow - Ah, that, she thinks. It’s stopped hurting, now, the bruise around her wound almost faded into her skin, scab starting to itch.

“Oh, nothing,” she says. Nothing, yeah, she thinks. This afternoon, she was queuing at Pret and some guy behind her was standing close (too close); she couldn’t breathe, had to leave. “I fought the corner of my bathroom cabinet and it won.”

“Ouch,” he smiles, again, sympathetic. A gush of wind ruffles the leaves of the tree in front of them. Her skin tickles under the sun.

It occurs to her that she could tell him. Could tell the police, could pretty much tell anyone. The part of her brain that analyses this as an event, as a logical, practical problem that needs a solution, the part of her brain that’s read books, written essays and been to legal conferences about – well, no, it didn’t happen to her, did it? She doesn’t want to use the word – that part of her brain tells her that she should probably tell someone, tell the police, too. Yet, when Alan shrugs, Martha shrugs as well, fiddles with the skin at the edge of her nails, and sighs.

“Are you coming in?” he asks, after a while, glancing at the building behind him.

“Yeah, in a minute,” she breathes, eyeing her cigarette. It’s the third one.

Alan nods, almost turns around to leave before he stops, looks at her again. “She’s not here, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Martha raises an eyebrow at him, confused. “Harriet,” he says, then. Ah, she nods. “From what John said, she didn’t want to have the wake in Chambers. Clive and she yelled it out in the middle of the clerk’s room; apparently, he ended up telling her it wasn’t up to negotiation and also, that she wasn’t invited.”

Martha sighs, then, again, watching the end of her cigarette burn at the tip of her fingers. She glances at Alan; knows what he’s thinking (thinks it, too): conflict is not good. Not good for Chambers, not good for Clive. She’s tried not to care – she really has - but it doesn’t seem to work.

“I think he just wanted you to feel like you could come,” Alan adds. “If you wanted to.”

Martha pulls him into a hug, arms wrapping around his frame. “I’ll miss you, Alan,” she says and he smiles, holds her tight against him. They miss Billy, the both of them, she knows, miss their friend.

“Me too.”

.

Frequently, she thinks in songs. Joy Division plays over memories of Clive and her kissing in an empty courtroom, The Clash over the ones of all the years she spent here, in London, a quiet, long, breathless soul drowning by the river. It’s past five o’clock, people pouring out of court into the other offices that surround the area; she watches, her cigarette falling to the floor. A man carrying his robes over a black briefcase looks away from his phone, for a moment, glances at her and nods. Martha nods back, polite, isn’t sure she recognises him.

It’s always been like this, like clockwork, Middle Temple breathing in unison with the justice system; the morning rush and the afternoon walk back to Chambers, another day done. In a few minutes, some of them will leave for the pub while others will stay in, work on the next case, the next brief. She had a routine, for years, had people in her life that mattered and for the first time in a very long while, Martha realises, she’s not quite sure what to do with herself, anymore.

Music is playing in her ears, so that’s why she doesn’t hear Clive coming out behind her until she sees his bare arm, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, leaning in next to her. She’s listening to a ballad, her Spotify Discover Weekly playlist on shuffle – you’re used to grey England skies, the singer sings. Cloudy days, colder nights. She pulls her earphones out, steals a glance at Clive, their shoulders almost touching.

“You okay?” he asks. No. I’m not alright, no, her own voice echoes in her head, from that night; she loops the wires around her IPod, keeps it tight in her palm. “Alan said you were coming in, but that was about thirty minutes ago, so -”

He leaves the rest of his sentence unspoken – it’s not like him. Clive’s logical at heart, likes to voice things out and tell her what she doesn’t want to hear. She doesn’t know whether to sigh, smile, or chuckle so when a sound comes out of her mouth, it’s a mix of all three. Martha looks at him and really, no, she’s not okay, not at all, she thinks. “Billy’s dead,” she tells him, again, because it bears repeating, because her life feels like it’s in free fall, right now, and she’s not sure who’s going to stop it from crashing against the concrete floor. She closes her eyes, for a moment, holding back the tears that clog her throat; Clive’s look catches hers when she opens them again, still cobalt blue and oddly soothing (after all these years) - he holds her gaze, doesn’t touch her.

“I know.” There’s a sad look in his eyes, too, she realises, but not the same as Alan’s. Clive looks sad on her behalf, like he wants to understand more than he wants to feel, himself; it’s calming, knowing that, but also a bit scary, she thinks. “Do you want to walk?” he offers, after a while, when it becomes clear that she won’t come in (crowds, she feels, closed spaces, are also a bit difficult for her, these days). His head points to the right, grey, cobblestones under their feet. She’s thankful that he seems to get it, at least, that she doesn’t want to be here, in Chambers, or tomorrow, at the funeral, mourning Billy in front of everybody like his death is an event like any other.

Martha nods, smiles, weak. “Yeah.”

They walk comfortably, past red-brick buildings and through the gardens to stroll along the Thames. There’s quite a number of people, there: joggers, tourists, children playing, shouting, laughing. Martha and Clive don’t talk about anything other than directions but somewhere before the first bridge they pass, Martha feels herself relax, a temporary right awarded to just be in the present moment.

They make it to a pub, wooden chairs and unfamiliar settings; they’re in foreign territory here, too far from Chambers, his place, or hers, and yet, she feels like they belong, sharing a bowl of chips with a pint of lager for him, a diet coke for her.  

“How are things?” she asks. “In Chambers?”

She guesses she has a little bit of an edge on him, there, knows things aren’t good, from what Alan said, but wants him to talk, to trust her with this if he wants to. She watches him eat; it occurs to her that he reminds her of Sean, sometimes, of the way he was after they broke up, watching from afar as she worked her way through university, always gravitating at arm’s length, but never quite far enough, either. She remembers a friend’s birthday – was studying for exams, wasn’t supposed to come – and Dave apologised when Sean showed up with another girl, as if it was his fault. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you’d come,’ he said, and: ‘Sorry, I also didn’t know he’d bring her.’ Martha had laughed, then, shook her head.

‘It’s fine,’ she promised, looked at Sean. The girl was tall, lean, fake curls in her hair. Sean looked more hurt than Martha ever did, like he’d lost something he’d never get back.

Clive catches her gaze, now, like the utmost demonstration of a courage she doesn’t think she has, anymore, and doesn’t lie. “It’s just been,” he starts, trails off, tries to explain. “It’s been difficult, with Billy gone. Every time I step into Chambers, there’s an empty chair, I just –”

A hand runs over his face, and all she wants to do, for a little while, is to hug him. Tell him in words that she can’t utter that she understands, that it’s one of the reasons why she couldn’t step inside Chambers, today, like part of her doesn’t want to acknowledge that Billy’s gone, yet. Clive was right, when he told his mum they’re a bit lost, the both of them.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do it on my own,” he admits, looking down at his hands, fingers joined over the table. Martha smiles at him, reassuring, she tends to forget that Clive has doubts, tends to forget about anyone but her, these days. In her defence, he always looked like he had it together while she never really did.

“You’re not alone,” she reminds him, fingers wrapping around her glass. It’s just ice in there, now, keeps her cool. “You’ve got Jake, John, CW, Harriet -”

His laugh interrupts her; she rolls her eyes, thinks: well, you’re still less alone than I am. He catches her gaze, sighs, admits: “I slept with Harriet.”

Well, she thinks, glancing up at him. Yeah. There is anguish in Clive’s eyes so Martha spares him a retort about how she knows that, about how they heard him, Billy and she, in bloody Chambers, for fuck’s sake. She doesn’t act shocked either, though, because in truth, she never was. It hurt like an arrow that was shot a long time ago and was bound to hit eventually, like a weapon she shouldn’t have allowed to wound her.

Clive lets out a sigh through a smile, his look still on hers. “It made things, er,” he chuckles nervously, shakes his head. “A bit more… Complicated, let’s say.”

Martha puffs out a laugh, loud, the people next to them throw her a look. Ah, Clive, she thinks, smiles at him until it forces him to smile back. “That is bound to complicate things, isn’t it?” she says and he rolls his eyes at her while she thinks: you never learn, do you? He drinks a bit and they enjoy the fun and games like they usually do, that is until something changes, in the way he looks at her; they’re only children until they’re not, she knows.

“It never did,” he points out, setting his glass back against the table. She bites her bottom lip, his eyes making her look up. “Not with you.”

At first, she’s tempted to disagree. Well, it did, she thinks. When she cheated on Jerôme, when she got pregnant - but yeah, also, she knows what he means: those were outside factors, like when they rowed over cases and didn’t speak for days until one of them forgot what they were mad about. It wasn’t them. Them always existed and never really changed, through the years, like a lifeline she could hold onto, whenever she needed to. The sex was an added bonus, not “just sex”, but not a complication either, just another way to get lost, every once in a while. She knows what he means, what he’s trying to tell her, and she hates him for it, for backing her into a corner and letting her fall to the ground. “I’m not coming back, Clive,” she tells him, forces herself to remind him of a decision she’s already made. He nods but holds her gaze, like he begs to differ. She smiles, adds. “Certainly not to work for you.”

Clive laughs, then, fakes a frown. “Why?” he smiles, raises an eyebrow at her. “I’m a great boss. I even share my chips,” he jokes, pushing the now empty bowl towards her. She rolls her eyes, shakes her head at him, chuckling.

“Oh, fuck off, Clive,” she tells him, kind of secretly hoping that he won’t.

.

On the way back, they play a kind of bittersweet do you remember game, eating ice cream by the river and watching city lights twinkle in the distance. She gets some sort of fruit sorbet that tints her lips red under the sunset (she hasn’t worn lipstick since that night) and tastes like summer, flowery, just a tiny bit chilly. They exchange memories of Billy and the early days in Chambers, do you remember when we first met? I sure do, a tune floats in her mind as she listens to Clive speak.

‘Billy?’ she recalls asking, panicked and dizzy at the Bailey after Clive said he loved her, quickly crouched over her, his hand against her cheek. When she opened her eyes, he chuckled; confused, Martha remembered, and smiled at him.

‘Should I be offended?’

She laughed as he helped her up, sitting with their backs against the wood of the bench. The room was beautiful, polished; she’d always liked that: beautiful things. A smile reached her lips when his thigh touched hers.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever made a girl swoon before,’ Clive spoke again, joked. She could have explained that with the alcohol and the fact that she hadn’t eaten in a while, her swooning was hardly his doing but he could believe whatever he wanted, she decided.

Martha glanced up at him, made him turn to face her. ‘Look at me,’ she smiled, then, quiet. ‘You’ve lipstick everywhere.’

She took her thumb to his lips but his fingers found her face just as hers touched his; he pulled her back to him, mouth finding hers. He was slow, deliberate, gentle, before he pulled away.

‘Don’t kiss me like that,’ she whispered. Deserted courtrooms and rushing hearts.

‘Like what?’

She was the first to glance away, sat back on her heels and looked to the ground. Almost confessed: like you meant what you said. ‘You can trust me, Marth,’ he’d told her, once, her hand in his after her father passed away and: Can I? she remembers thinking, like: Did you? Did you mean it, really, Clive?

“When I got silk,” she tells him, instead, now, watching a boat cruise past them. “Billy made me walk all the way up Middle Temple Lane,” she smiles, recalls walking up the cobbled street, the clerk at her arm, people watching. She steals a glance to her side and Clive is smiling, too. “Wig, gown, everything.” 

She holds his gaze for a moment, doesn’t see any animosity in his eyes, just something bittersweet, nostalgic, maybe. Clive fiddles with the empty pot of ice cream in his hands, a green plastic spoon set on the side. “You always were his favourite,” he says, looking at her, smiling. She shakes her head, out of principle, breaks eye contact, sighs. “Don’t deny it, Marth, it’s true,” he insists. She knows it is, if she’s being completely honest with herself but looking at how things turned out for the both of them, she’s not completely sure that was a good thing. “It’s okay,” he adds, a grin tinting his words. She doesn’t know how he does it, but he catches her glance again. “I’m still Harriet’s favourite, so –”

She shouldn’t laugh at this, it’s lousy and mildly offensive and not even a real joke but she does, anyway, feels an instinct to touch him, playfully shove him away. She fights it, shakes her head at him as he laughs with her.

A moment passes, she feels the both of them go silent. Clive turns his head to face Martha again, something almost shy in his voice. “I’m going to miss this,” he tells her, his head a bit cocked to the side. “I’m going to miss you.”

For the first time in a while, his voice sounds raw and almost desperate, like he wants to be honest, like the promise they made to each other, once upon a time. He was a bit drunk in her bed, had told her something about a case that he probably shouldn’t have. She raised an eyebrow at him and he looked panicked for a second, his hand against her arm. ‘Oh, come on, Marth,’ he said, sounding a little outraged. ‘Whatever we say here is off limits, no?’

She laughed, bit her lip, pretended to consider it. ‘You really think pillow talk is off limits, Clive?’

He hummed, smiled, his body close to hers. ‘I think we tell each other everything,’ he suggested like the easiest thing in the world, made her promise. ‘Come on, Marth,’ he grinned, placed is hand between them on the mattress, his little finger going up. ‘Pinky swear.’

She laughed, shook her head but still laced her finger with his. Kissed his lips. ‘Alright, Clive,’ she told him. ‘Pinky swear.’

“I want to fix this, Marth,” he tells her, now, staring straight into her eyes. His voice is firm, affirmative. “I don’t want you to hate me, and I don’t want you to go.”

There is a pause in his speech, and she thinks of what comes next as the start of the game of chess they’ll be playing over the next few months, the one where each of them holds a mission statement close to their hearts, advancing pawns like arguments to be made.

Clive is telling her everything when he says: “I’m going to try and convince you to stay.”

She smiles at him, nods. Thinks: fair. But also: “I don’t hate you,” she adds, quick, before he speaks. Wasn’t able to get the words out, that night, but she can, now: the noise in her head is fainter, it allows her to think for longer than a couple of seconds, through the anger and the grief of the past few weeks. He looks at her, startled, opens his mouth but she goes on before he does. “I mean, I hate what you did, and I’m angry, and disappointed, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you, but I don’t hate you.”

It sort of all comes out in a rush; he looks at her for a moment, thinks, smiles. “I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”

She shrugs, honest, smiles back, still. The night lights now reflect in his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t know.” 

“I don’t hate you either,” he says.

She’s surprised. Not only by what he says but also by the weight it seems to lift off her shoulders, the way it makes her smile, makes her feel like, okay, this is something. And there are many things she’d like to tell him, about the bar, and about Billy, about her dad, and about –

“Are you trying to make me talk?” she asks him, the memory of that evening after her dad passed away suddenly playing in her head. Darn, she smiles, he’s good.

Clive catches her gaze, poker face on, mischievous. “It’s part one of the plan, yeah. Is it working?”

Yes, it is, she thinks, as she bursts out laughing. He’s a good lawyer, Clive, learns fast and she’s taught him the trick herself, after all. ‘Tell her something about you’, she remembers advising him: tit for tat, so to speak. ‘It really is that easy.’

When they were kids – pupils – she remembers they used to play rock, paper, scissors, betting on drinks, cases, on who would stay up all night doing the nightmarish research due the next day. One, two, three, Clive used to count, as they stood, hands balled up in fists behind their backs, staring into each other’s eyes; it’s how she came to interpret his sighs, his body language, understand that he wants to know this, but also would never try to force the words out of her mouth.

One, two, three, she counts, now, in her head. Speaks. “He bought me a drink,” she starts and just like that: tells him. Looks at the river, at the lights from the London Eye, red and blue twinkles reflecting in the water. Clive is quiet, stands next to her, his arms over the iron railing in front of them. London is beautiful, she thinks. She’ll miss that, too. “I went home, after –” after we shouted, after I ran away, after Billy died, after – “Downed a bottle of wine, went to a pub, drank some more. This,” she sighs, lets the memory cloud in front of her eyes. She still can’t quite distinguish his features. “He bought me another drink.”

The words spill out of her mouth, then, unfiltered in the dark; she speaks of Brown Hair and leading him to the ladies, and his hands all over her body, and feeling good, turned-on, and then trapped, terrified, tells Clive about running away. She doesn’t know why but she doesn’t spare him any details, detached, like it’s a case, someone else’s case, like it didn’t even happen to her. When she stops, Martha looks away; he doesn’t speak for a long time, probably thinks she’s stupid, she guesses, for getting herself in that situation in the first place.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it, Clive,” she tells him, in the end, when she can’t take the silence anymore. “To be honest, I know I probably shouldn’t have been drinking –”

“Good God, Marth, no,” he cuts her off, mid-sentence; she’s never heard him sound so certain of anything in her life. She stops talking, then, looks up at him. There is a strength in his eyes, a degree of confidence; she wishes she still felt that. “Nothing in the world could make this your fault.”

Her hands are joined, shaking over the railing, the water quick under their feet. She steals a glance at him.

“It’s not your fault. God, you know this, you -” Clive argues, his stare on the side of her face. Tears almost fall down her cheeks; he trails off, immediately. “Sorry, I just meant –” he speaks, fast; she shakes her head, means to tell him it’s not his fault, that it’s on her, that she’d think the same if she was in his position, not wanting to believe that anyone could blame themselves for this. It’s an odd place, she thinks, being in her head and in his at the same time.

“I know what you meant,” she speaks, quick. “I just –”

“You need to go to the police, Marth.”

She thinks the words leave his mouth before he has time to filter them; they sound shocked, unprepared, like the most obvious thought that’s just hit his brain. She appreciates the honesty, the attention, knows that he means well, that he can’t possibly think that this could be anything but a first response, the right thing to do. “No,” she explains, though, and her voice sounds oddly calm, even to her. He opens his mouth, ready to counter; she doesn’t let him. “Even if they found him, Clive, I –” she sighs, tries to choose words that will make him understand. “By all standards, I was -” she begins, thinking of that poor girl in the only rape case she ever did. Her blond hair and her tears, trying to defend herself on the stand. “Drunk, leading him to the ladies,” Martha describes, smiles, almost trying to reassure him, let him know that it’s okay, that she’ll be okay, one day. “Even I’d cross-examine myself to the ground.”

Clive’s mouth opens at that; she cuts him short of yet another argument, raising her hand between them.

“We both know how it works, Clive.”

He hesitates a bit, his jaw clenched. She can see the wheels turning in his head, the case he could build against her until he finally sighs, gives her a quiet nod. Clive smiles at her, sad but empathetic, worried, and she fights the instinctive urge she feels to move away, say she’s not a victim, say the worst didn’t happen, that she got out of there lucky, that she doesn’t really need the support. Instead, she stays close to him and instinctively reaches for him, her thumb tentatively brushing against the back of his hand, biting on her lip to keep her tears at bay.

“I’ll kill him,” Clive speaks, then, certain. “I’ll find him and I’ll fucking kill him.”

And, maybe, that’s what she’s always loved about him ever since they met: that ability he seems to have to make her laugh, still, even in the darkest moments of her life. Loud, genuine, probably the funniest thing she’s heard in a long while. He sounds serious, when he says it, which makes it even more amusing because while she appreciates the support, she guesses, Clive would also get caught in a millisecond, isn’t quite the criminal mastermind he thinks he is. He looks a tad offended by her reaction, at first, until he laughs, too, her warmth contagious, their shoulders bumping against each other. “Thanks for the offer,” she smiles, shaking her head at him. “But I’ve already got one ex in jail for murder, I won’t have another.”

She realises what she’s said as soon as she says it, sees an amused eyebrow go up on his face and rolls her eyes at him. “Is that what I am?” he challenges, almost pleased. “An ex?”

She bites her lip, a bit red on the cheeks, hopes he can’t see it. Martha laughs, shrugs, concedes. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

“I like it,” he says, jokes.  “I can work with that.” Martha shakes her head at him, playfully hits his arm and for the ghost of a second, there is a part of her that thinks that she might stay in London a bit longer, thinks that she’ll also miss his presence next to her, somehow.  

On the way home, they’re silent, mostly, but there’s an awkwardness that’s gone, between them, evaporated with the thought that maybe they could trust each other, still. He leaves her at the top of the stairs, her hand leaving his after she held onto it the whole way back, keeping him close to her. He smiles, pulls her into a hug.  

“Marth, if you need a friend,” he says, caressing her skin. “I’m here, okay?”

And as she said before, she’s still here, too. So, she smiles, a soft laugh escaping her mouth, nods. “Okay.”

Chapter Text

iv.

What we’re doing, here, ain’t just scary. It’s about to be legendary.

Legendary – Welshly Arms

What Clive doesn’t know is: she misses Billy’s funeral for another boy.  

Doesn’t dare tell him, doesn’t want the argument, the fight. The day of the service, she’s on the road again, somewhere outside London on the motorway, speeding at 80mph like she’s the only one there, music blasting out of her speakers (here you go, way too fast, don’t slow down, you’re gonna cra-a-a-ash). Clive calls; her phone connects to the dashboard in the car, the song abruptly cutting on a high note. “Are you going?” Martha wonders, trying to hide the nerves in her voice.

Clive sighs; she imagines him shaking his head. “No, I’m in court all afternoon. You?”

She pauses. The guy in front of her is driving so fucking slow it’s painful to watch; she sticks to the rear end of his car until she wins the glaring contest in his mirror and he finally moves to the middle lane. Fucking idiot, she thinks, re-accelerates. “Can’t either.” There’s a shrug of her shoulders; the words tell Clive but they don’t tell him, really, neither confirm nor deny, just let him assume what she wants him to. Martha can’t, so it must be because she’s in court, too. It works: Clive breathes into the phone; it comes off loud in her car.

“Maybe we can go tomorrow? I mean, it won’t be the same but –”

She swallows, heavy; Clive lets his sentence hang. No, it won’t be the same, but then Billy will still be dead, won’t he? Martha thinks. In truth, she’s slightly surprised by the offer, didn’t think it’d be something that Clive would want to do, and maybe he doesn’t, maybe he’s just offering for her sake, but it doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like Billy talking to her after her dad died, insisting on the necessity of “saying goodbye.” He would have wanted her to come even if she doesn’t.

“Yeah, okay,” Martha agrees, nods before saying her goodbyes and hanging up the phone, almost missing the exit for Long Lartin. Maybe it’s an excuse she uses to avoid having to confront the reality of Billy being put to the ground, maybe she could have gone to see Sean literally any other day, but she likes to think of it as a sacrifice, like her cross to bear.

She misses Billy’s funeral for him.

.

They met in Year 7. Blonde, untamed curls and bright blue eyes: new school. Her parents had chosen one somewhat closer to home for secondary (she could go on her own, like a big girl, her father said) and Sean had just moved into a new council estate, his mum having separated from his dad, soon to be on his way to jail for burglary. His little brother, Jimmy, cried all the way through Bolton in the car. Sean, on the other hand, was, as he put it later, just happy he’d stop having plates thrown at his face every time he’d set the knives and forks the wrong way around, come dinner time.

They clicked. Martha doesn’t know why, can’t explain it, but they clicked fast and real, the way only children can. Over the span of a few months, her mum started referring to them as ‘conjoined twins’ (she still liked him, back then), jokingly saying that one would never go anywhere without the other. Martha’s parents were aware of Sean’s family “situation”, welcomed him into their home with fresh biscuits and hot chocolate on Thursday afternoons. Sean was polite, thankful: the only way she’s ever been able to see him since.

Time went by and Year 7 turned into Year 8, Year 9. Before Martha knew it, they were hiding in someone’s attic, playing spin the bottle with a bunch of kids and a boy named Matthew Brown kissed her on the lips (her very sloppy, wet, first kiss). Sean subsequently refused to talk to her for days. Matthew and she lasted about a week (some sort of teenage romance Guinness Book record) and around a year later, one cold November morning, Martha kissed Sean and embarked on what would become the longest, most serious relationship she’s ever had.

Clive wouldn’t understand that. It’s why she doesn’t tell him about it, about visiting Sean in prison instead of going to Billy’s funeral, or about the thoughts that keep swirling in her head. Clive believes Sean simply waltzed back into her life and turned her entire personality around, turned her into someone deaf and stupid, into someone she’s not. The thing is: Sean reminds her of who she used to be.

Sometimes, she wonders if he wasn’t the only relationship she’s ever had. Jérôme was – well, Martha never really loved him. Not the way she did Sean. With Sean, it was – she remembers feeling like she wanted to spend her life with him, have children with him, be with him, would have put her life in his hands – no questions asked. From ages eleven to eighteen, it felt like he was part of her. Like they grew up as one entity, Martha working to try and pull them up in spite of the numerous attempts he involuntarily made at pushing them down. For years, she was part of a duo: Martha and Sean, in school, at parties and anywhere she went, like her identity would forever be linked to his.  

It’s weird, remembering that, now, (that intensity) knowing that before he forced his way back into her life with the grandeur and style he’d always sported around her (in handcuffs, of course, to make matters worse), Martha used not to think about them all that much, anymore. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten about him (how could she?) but slowly, from the time she left home to the time she got silk, he gradually faded to the background of her life and she stopped wondering where he was, what he was doing (who he was seeing). She’d run into him sometimes, on Christmases after he came back from Afghan and would visit his mates; she’d be in the pub with her friend Jo (the only person outside her family she’s known longer than him – Martha’s a fiercely loyal animal; she and Jo were together in Year 1) and he’d come over, say hello.

“Sean,” Martha would say, the vowels in his name a closed sound, like her father said it.

Jo would roll her eyes after he’d leave, whisper in her friend’s ear. “My God. Is he ever going to get over you?”

Today: “Sean,” Martha also replies to his greeting as he sits down in front of her and she breathes in, her hands joined over the table to keep them from shaking. She’s come prepared, repeating phrases in her head as she emptied her belongings into the box they handed her at the x-ray machines, letting one of the guards pat her up and down for contraband. Martha bites her lip when she sees him, the distraught expression on his face, handcuffs around his wrists before the guards take them off. She wants to walk away.

Yeah, she thinks, shaking her head at the memory. It occurs to her that maybe, she’s the one who’s never quite got over him.

.

It goes downhill from the moment they start talking. The reasons why they clicked as children are the same reasons why they never did as adults: once they’d grown up together, they outgrew each other, like seeds planted for two different trees on a lot too small for their branches to spread. Sean still lives in a world where the place they stand today can be justified by the lines they crossed as kids, whereas when she looks at him, Martha sometimes can’t tell that a part of her identity ever lived inside him.

They sit down and he leans forward, curiously eyeing her face before the words come out of his mouth. “Did you get in a fight?” he asks, amused, a casual smirk on his lips.

Sean, like Alan yesterday, is referring to the cut at Martha’s eyebrow, faint but still there, and while she knew Alan’s question came from a place of concern, Sean’s comes from misplaced curiosity and mild envy. Martha’s sick of people asking about it, really, when the words were so hard to find, even with Clive last night, and annoyance is already boiling under her skin after just a few minutes spent with Sean. “Yes,” she answers, provocative, because it’s true (she did – get in a fight, that is), but also not. Her word is quick and slightly irritated; she reaches under her seat to place a paper folder in front of them, redirecting his attention. Sean puffs out a laugh, leans back in his chair and catches her gaze. There’s amusement, on his face, and a hint of pride, too.

“Now, that’s my girl,” he says. Martha hates him for it.

Irrationally, first, she hates him for making fun of something painful that he, frankly, couldn’t possibly know about. If she told him, Sean would likely react just like Clive did. I’ll fucking kill him, he’d say, except, well, he probably would. She also hates the possessiveness in his words. He might not have meant it like that (a part of her brain is always very busy trying to find excuses for him), but she’s already told him before (once, in his bed: ‘I don’t belong to you, Sean McBride’), and he should know better. Martha rolls her eyes, sighs, arms crossed over her chest, throws him a glare: stop, it warns. Sean’s a lot like her, puts on a front when he’s vulnerable, hides the fear in his eyes behind a large dose of brashness and street-smart superiority.

As he speaks, though, she sees one of the guards snigger to his left, and while Sean’s words were annoying, it’s nothing compared to how angry that makes her feel. It’s what Sean wants, Martha knows, what he’s always looking for: a crowd, an audience to laugh at his lousy, sexist jokes to hide the powerlessness underneath.

Sean is a shy boy, she remembers, who grew up in the body of a man who’s just trying to survive.

In the span of seconds, she goes from Martin Luther King, to Mother Teresa, to full on Rottweiler (well, really, to Martha fucking Costello). Channelling her exasperation at Sean in productive ways, that’s something she’s known how to do almost her whole life.

“Can I get some privacy with my client, here?” Martha asks, eyeing the guards, pointed and menacing, with authority in her voice she frankly didn’t know she could still muster.

One of the guards grumbles as Sean stares, mesmerised. “He assaulted –”

“I know,” she says. They don’t move. “Look, I’ll take full responsibility –”

“Ma’am, with all due respect –”

“Either you leave right now or I step out of this room and call your superiors to make a formal complaint against you, personally,” Martha points at him, eyeing the name tag on his uniform. “For not letting me see my client and listening in on our privileged conversation. Your choice.”

In the guard’s look, she sees the hesitating, slightly disapproving glare Jo sometimes gave her when they were young, in regards to Sean. As it turns out, like most people in Martha’s life, she was never a huge fan of him. Hid it better than Martha’s mother, true, (who didn’t even try to hide it, really, made a point not to), but Martha could very well read between the lines of her childhood friend’s words.

One time, the both of them had skipped school to smoke joints at the edge of the local football field, wet grass under their bums dirtying the fabric of their school uniforms. Martha coughed as she breathed in, the roll-up sitting between her fingers for a moment. ‘Shit, how much did you put in there?’ she laughed, a distinct grassy smell lingering in the air.

Jo giggled, weed-induced, leaning back against the fence surrounding the field, a rattle of metal echoing in their ears. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said with a wink. ‘I got a friendly discount.’

Martha laughed, too, the drugs slowly getting to her brain as she took another drag – it had been kind of a while. She shook her head, chuckled. ‘Who from?’

Jo went quiet. Very quiet, very quickly. Took the joint from Martha’s hand but held it in hers, not smoking, just watching the empty field in silence. The air was misty, like before rain; they could barely see the lines drawn on the grass. Jo looked at Martha, a sort of anxious tone in her voice. ‘Sean,’ she admitted, quickly, under her friend’s inquisitorial gaze. ‘Oh, come on, Mar. Promise me not to get mad.’

And, to her credit, Martha didn’t. Like most things with Sean, she had sort of guessed, by then, that the necklace he’d given her just a month before (in a proper box, with the warranty – she knew he hadn’t stolen it) had been paid with money that probably hadn’t been legally earned. Yet, she felt hurt at the fact that he hadn’t told her, that he was bright and yet sometimes too much of an idiot not to get caught, and that there would likely be nothing she could do to prevent it. He’d already got into trouble with the coppers once before, they’d barged into his mum’s place at six in the morning while they were sleeping; when Martha protested, they’d threatened to take her with them, too.

Jo must have sensed the worry in her look before she spoke: ‘You really love him, don’t you?’

Her words were Martha’s first encounter with love, in a sense, with a word that seemed to encompass whatever it was she felt, a mix of fondness and dependency that made her willing to put up with pretty much anything Sean did. She’d said it before, of course, because he’d said it to her (after they first had sex – maybe because they’d had sex, the simple fact that she’d agreed to it enough to send him over a cliff, back then) and while he’d sounded honest, Martha had known that she wasn’t, felt like she was saying it just because she should, like they did in the movies. When Jo spoke, that afternoon, the first question to hit Martha’s mind was to try and identify when that changed, when she started saying the words and actually meaning them. She felt fear, too, for the first time, that day.

Marth, what’s he doing to you?

Decades later, in jail, after a good few seconds of a glaring contest between Martha and them, the guards finally step out of the room, reluctantly. Sean waits until they’re gone to raise a playful eyebrow at her, sitting back in his chair. “Well, fuck me, Martha Costello,” he says, shaking his head, disbelieving. “That gave me a bloody hard on.”

Martha clenches her jaw, arms crossed over her chest, stony court glare set on him.

She sees the look in his eyes change, then, out with the show-off glance he usually throws the gallery; she sees something soft and lost – the boy she used to know. “Sorry, Mar,” he apologises, immediately. “Shouldn’t have said that.”

.

She gets him to sign the papers, eventually, which is why she came in the first place. Doesn’t know if it’s the tone of her voice or the exhaustion in his but he doesn’t put up much of a fight. “It says that I’m stepping out,” Martha informs, dutifully. The memories of them replay in front of her eyes: ten years of her life in bad quality reels. “It says that you’ve been notified,” she adds. “That your file will be remitted to your solicitor pending appeal for instruction of another brief.”

Sean barely looks at the print, signs all three copies and returns the open file across the table, eyes refusing to leave her face. “I feel like I’ve just signed divorce papers,” he says, a half-smile tugging at his lips. (He’s always been like this, Sean: half-smiling and half-not.) Martha swallows, looks away and refuses to speak, hardly moves. Simply retrieves the papers and orders them into a neat pile, closing the folder above.

A copy will be mailed to your solicitor, she thinks, wants to say, should say, but doesn’t, can’t, just –

“I feel like I’m losing you all over again,” Sean adds, staring straight into her eyes.  

His voice is the first to break, actually, as he speaks, and Martha realises that’s why she couldn’t bring herself to say anything, before, recognised the feeling at the back of her throat, has become so familiar with it over the last few weeks as her tough façade gradually deconstructed, leaving tears piling amongst the wreckage. Martha looks at him and sees his eyes red; he smiles at her, twisted and sad, a slight shrug moving his shoulders. Sean nods, understands.

“Both times for being a fucking cunt to you,” he says, almost whispers, like someone who knows they shot themselves in the foot. “I’m sorry, Mar.”

She shakes her head, clenches her jaw. It’s not – “You lied, Sean.” The words are the same as the ones she spat at him after the trial but means them differently. Sean opens his mouth, probably to apologise again, but it’s not what Martha wants to tell him. Back then, she was angry, less sensible than she is now. “You lied because clients lie,” she amends, explains, catching his glance. “I should have known. It’s my job to know.”

“It’s not your fault, Mar.”   

And as he speaks, she shifts in her seat, moving the folder that still lies between them, moving because if she doesn’t – if she stops thinking, acting – she will cry, this time around. “I can’t, Sean,” she mutters under her breath, a broken secret admitted to him. I can’t do this, Martha thinks. I can’t watch you –

The thought finishes - ugly, terrifying words at the back of her mind: I can’t watch you die, too.

And, that’s the thing, isn’t it: the fear simmering at the bottom of her stomach? At trial, before Billy passed away, before her life was turned upside down, she used to think Sean was being paranoid, with the guards and the tea, and the calling wolf – he’d always been a bit dramatic, after all, hadn’t he? She couldn’t afford to think about it, couldn’t let the pressure paralyse her, but now all she can do is think about it, isn’t it? Now feels different. Her doubts reach beyond his case, beyond Mickey Joy and the Monk family, and anything that could have been done or said, and she wonders: could he be right? And: did I just send him to the slaughterhouse?  

It’s not the first time Martha has these thoughts, of course, but it’s first time she gets to look at him while she has them, tangible, alive at the other end of the white Formica table between them, and yet, it occurs to her that he could be gone in a matter of seconds. That this could be the last time that she sees him, the boy she used to think she would never live without.

Panic builds up at the pit of her stomach; she wants to leave, now, leave this room, this town, leave England, altogether. Martha doesn’t want to see him, doesn’t want to face the consequences of what happened, between them, doesn’t want –

She must move a little because his hand reaches for hers, across the table in an attempt to keep her close to him. It’s funny, really, because his skin is hard, hurt, calluses at the base of his phalanges, nails bitten raw and yet, when he touches her again, Martha stills, muscle memory slowly reacting to him. In her head, they’re in bed, years and years ago, his fingers light over her skin, like feathers softly dragged across her shoulders, rain falling against the window outside. I love you, his eyes said, then, and now; Martha looks at him, bites her lip. Sean smiles, laughs a little, quiet, nods. “‘I know in the past I’ve found it hard to say, telling you things but not telling you straight. But the more I pull on your hand, the more you pull away.’”

She frowns. The quote feels familiar but she can’t quite place it, wonders if it’s something he’s said to her, back in the day, something –

“The Streets,” Sean cites, amused, and of course, she should have known. “Dry Your Eyes.” Martha glances at the wall behind him, blank, sterile, and it’s such a contrast with his look, his face, on which she reads so much (emotion, empathy, anger, fear -), too much, maybe. “I used to listen to that song and think of you, you know?” he tells her and no, she did not know that, no. “Shame it came out after we were done, innit?”

And, the truth is: Martha used to think of him, too. Remembers the way she’d change the channel every time the song came on; it always felt uncomfortable. “‘Plenty more fish in the sea,’ though, right?” Martha quotes back, wants to remind him of what he did, too. From the other girl back then to the other girl now, the one who testified in the middle of a courtroom about how he beat the shit out of her every time she stepped out of line. Sean’s hand leaves hers, thrown over his heart in mock hurt.

“Ouch,” he smirks and it’s always been hard to compute, in her brain, how he can be so good at one thing and so bad at the other. How he could comfort her through the panic attacks she used to have at the thought of her dad eventually forgetting her, and yet cause her the same stress at the thought of him dying, twenty years later. “What am I going to do until the appeal, Mar?” he asks, honest, hammers his point home. “I can’t even eat food without fearing it’s been poisoned.”

And there, there’s a moment. It’s the first one since she lost the trial, since whoever she used to be broke, a moment during which the thoughts inside her head insist: no, that’s enough. Sean taunted her once with a that’s my girl thrown in casual possessiveness and she barked at the guards, but didn’t say a thing to him. He taunted her again with his bloody hard-on and all he got was a glare, as if that would ever be something that she would tolerate.

The third time is the charm, though, and instead of indulging Sean, succumbing to the fear and guilt he wants her to feel, she pushes back on him, just like she used to back then. Martha Costello drags the both of them out of the water, and saves them from drowning in the mess he’s created. “You’ll live, Sean,” she tells him, matter of fact, because she knows that if she tells him, he will. “You’ll live and you’re going to promise that to me,” Martha speaks, quick, before her nerves fail her. “Now, you do whatever you have to do in there, I don’t care.” Her jaw clenches, a glance thrown at the locked prison doors next to them. “But don’t you fucking ever dare say that you won’t make it again, because if you don’t make it, I’ll never fucking forgive myself. And we both need me to forgive myself.”

There’s no way to tell how long she holds his gaze, then, forces him to look at her on her terms, until she allows him not to. Sean’s demeanour changes, afterwards. It’s not the words she says, per se, but it’s the meaning behind them. In her head, Martha’s thrown back to the night when she broke up with him. Sean begged but the hard look on her features said: ‘I love you, Sean, but I can’t. That’s enough.’

Martha’s eyes close for a moment, now, before they find his again, stares locking, facing each other; she forgets the prison around them and it feels like they’re in the park they used to spend time in on summer afternoons, just the both of them. This might be the last time she sees him in a very long time, she thinks, and the part of her that still loves him, cares about him, that speaks, then. “You come say hi when you get out, yeah? Until then, we’re done.”

Sean laughs, nods, once, promises like they did when they were kids. “Cross my heart, Mar.”

.

That evening, she gets home but doesn’t call Clive like she usually does. Doesn’t cry either, or do anything out of the ordinary. She eats a half-burnt piece of toast instead, staring blankly at her TV and sits at the kitchen table with a fag between her fingers, contemplates.

‘I wonder, sometimes, you know?’ she told Billy, one evening. ‘What life would have been like if I’d stayed in Bolton.’

She thinks of Sean, today, and thinks: probably a lot like this, actually. Billy also said something, back then, that she never thought would resonate now. ‘I think you’d prefer the life you’re currently living, Miss.’

Martha closes her eyes, tries to push the memory of her clerk away. She’s just shut the door on Sean, today, but maybe Clive was right to suggest a trip to Billy’s grave, tomorrow.

He keeps jumping into her brain uninvited and maybe, she needs to learn to let him go, too.

.

Clive picks her up in the morning. She slips into the passenger seat of his car without uttering a word, listens to him talk over a very posh-sounding jazz playlist he’s selected. A heavy knot sits at the pit of her stomach. ‘I’ll go get some flowers,’ she told him before he made his way to her place, and now they’re carefully laid down on the back seat, his driving definitely not aggressive enough that they would ever fall.

Martha tries listening to him when he talks, tries to nod and smile when appropriate but she finds it hard to concentrate. Her eyes glaze over at the motorway, the bridges, the cars and the truth is: she misses Billy so much she might bleed to death with the pain of it.

.

They arrive about an hour later. Martha makes Clive park outside the village, walk down the streets in the shade of rows and rows of brick houses, with pink and purple, and orange blossoms pouring out of their windows. The weather has been getting gradually hotter and hotter over entire country; she feels light drops of sweat gliding along her lower back down to the waist of the old summer skirt she fished out of her wardrobe this morning, the fabric flowing over her legs. It’s beautiful out here, quiet, the rustle of the wind stroking the leaves of trees, heels tapping a rhythm against the pavement. No sirens, no ambulances or fire trucks, she would never dare to make noise louder than a whistle.

When they finally get cemetery, the walls tower over Martha like they did in Long Lartin, yesterday. Clive and she get lost for a bit, counting alleys and rows while he stares at the map in his hands; Martha’s the one who spots the fresh flowers out of the corner of her eye, in the end, the newly turned grass around it. There is something drawing her down the alley; she feels it in her gut, walks, slowly, Clive behind her. She stops, stares.

William Charles Lamb, Martha reads.

1969 – 2014

The headstone looks expensive, granite, with additional words of wisdom from family and friends, bouquets and plastic plants scattered over it. Clive doesn’t speak, next to her, their upper arms briefly touching as they stand. The sun is hot against her shoulders, she can feel the heat burning, her skin prickling where it’s bare, white turning red. Martha wonders what would have happened if they had gone yesterday, if she had seen men putting Billy to the ground with her own eyes, but a part of her likes that she didn’t, likes her pain to remain private, only to be shared among the both of them. Billy lies here, now, between Mr & Mrs Gerald Greene from Basildon and a teenager who got killed in a car crash in 1997, for however long an eternity is. Martha finds that comforting, oddly, to know that he’ll always be there, if she needs him.

Clive kneels, adds their flowers to the mix, yellow and white mums awkwardly fitting between tulips and rose ornaments. As he stands back up, Martha notices the quick movement of his fingers reaching his forehead, chest and shoulders; he’s crossing himself, she realises, and doesn’t even look like he knows he did it when she raises an eyebrow at him, like a habit, the way you always lock your door in the morning without ever remembering doing so. For a moment, it’s as though Martha can’t move, mesmerised. Suddenly, it seems mad that she almost raised a child with the man standing next to her without even knowing what he believes in, whatever it is.

“Do you believe in –” Martha asks, quickly before she can filter her words and trails off, not wanting to overstep. He’s spoken about childhood memories of going to church on Sundays but nothing since. “God, the afterlife and all that?”

Clive’s glance finds the side of her face, she can feel it as she watches the leaves of trees move softly in front of them, intrigued. He smiles at her question, seems to think about it for a while, quiet as she listens to the birds sing. “Yeah, I think so,” he admits, looking back at Billy’s grave, shrugging. “I’d like it to be true, at least.”

Martha nods, silent, and there’s a part of her that quite likes the idea, too. Thinks: I get wanting to believe that, yeah.

Clive turns to her, then, asks: “You?”

And, frankly, she’s not sure. On the one hand, there’s a degree of fate and happenstance in life that she can’t quite deny. Her whole career, for instance, turned on a university moot court exercise she’d barely prepared for, something about property deeds, hung-over, drums pounding in her head, her opponent speaking so bloody loud.

Their lecturer was a handsome middle-aged man: Mr Evershed, a former Q.C. He ran after her at the end of class, catching up before she’d turned the corner. ‘Miss Costello!’ he shouted behind her. Martha turned around, heavy books in her arms. ‘How much time did you spend on this?’

Shit, she remembers thinking. Tell the truth, you’ll look like a slacker. Lie, you’ll look stupid. Assuming she’d tanked the moot, Martha made a quick spur of the moment decision, chose the former. ‘Couple hours, maybe,’ she said, looking anywhere but him.

He laughed. What a dick, she thought. ‘Yeah?’ he nodded, smiling. ‘And you’re looking to be a solicitor, I assume. Have you got a training contract, yet?’

A couple hours later, she was handing him a copy of her CV, with a promise to keep an open mind and not to sign anything with anyone else without advising him first. He didn’t tell her a thing, a part of her hoping that maybe he knew someone in a big Club of Nine firm; Martha checked her mail every day, impatiently, waiting for news. It came in the post on a Tuesday. She opened her mail and found a formal interview request from Shoe Lane in it, spilt her morning coffee all over it. ‘The bar?’ she asked, storming into his office, uninvited. He laughed, sipping on tea. ‘I don’t have the –’

Frankly, she didn’t know where to start. Background? Money? Gender? He cut her off before she had time to figure it out. ‘Look, I saw you argue down there. You’re charismatic, you seem to know your worth, and most importantly, I think you had fun. Which is what matters most, in my book.’ He put his cup down, stared right at her. Through her, it felt. ‘You should consider it.’

A month later, she was awkwardly standing in the only suit she owned in the heart of London - had nearly bankrupted herself to buy it along with her train ticket - shaking Alan’s hand. When she started, the following September, she met Billy, Clive, and that was that, really. End of story.

So, she thinks as she eyes Clive, now: fate, yes, maybe. God, probably not. Martha notices that there is no cross on Billy’s grave and she finds herself wanting to stand by that, because something in her gut tells her that when he father died, a story ended, too. Sometimes, she indulges, wonders if he’s watching over her, over them all, but mostly, as far as Martha is concerned, all it is, is wishful thinking. She can’t remember the last time she visited his grave, tried to talk to him in her head.

So, in the end, she looks up at Clive and shakes her head no, quickly, sad but comfortable, knows that he won’t judge her for it, just genuinely wants to know. Her stare is fixed on Billy’s grave as she swallows, heavy; she closes her eyes for a moment.

Martha doesn’t believe in God, true, but she believes in rituals. They calm her, intimate and real. Her skirt has a pocket hidden in the folds, she slipped something in it on her way out this morning, a souvenir of sorts. She can feel the silk fabric dancing over her fingers before she opens her eyes again, thread long enough to roll around her wrist.

Slowly, she fishes the ribbon out of her pocket, its pink shade contrasting with her skin. Clive glances at her from the corner of his eye; she feels his stare on her as she steps forward, drops on one knee in front of the stone. It’s odd to think that Billy actually is down there, his body at least, lying still for the rest of eternity. The dozens of post-mortem reports she’s read in her life tell her that soon enough, only his clothes, hair and bones will remain, flesh eaten away by animals and insects, returned to the Earth. She’d rather be burnt, she thinks, a shiver running up her skin, at least that would be the end of it.

Martha reaches over to the corner of the headstone, drapes the ribbon over it. She ties a knot, beautiful, large, even buckles falling right above his last name, like a sash over his shoulder. Her hand flat against the stone, the sun high in her back, words form in her head: I think we’re going to be okay, Billy.

When she pulls herself back up and takes a short step to the right, away from the tombstone, Clive’s look falls over the ribbon. There are so many pink ribbons lost in her home and in Chambers, sliding under pieces of furniture and in coat pockets; it sort of fits here. It’s the resignation she promised herself: moving on. 

She looks up at Clive and suddenly, Martha sees the red in his eyes, tears he’s trying to wipe away falling down his cheeks. She’s cried too much about this to cry again, really, and maybe that’s why she’s a bit startled to see him like this, for a minute, remembers the lie he told her, years ago: ‘this baby, it’s just.’ Martha could see it in his look, back then, the collection of untruths he’d uttered to protect himself; she could have pushed, should have pushed, didn’t. I miss him too, you know, he’s saying, really, and maybe that’s it, maybe she was too self-centred to see it.

Martha’s always been pretty self-centred, to tell the truth. 

Wordlessly, she crosses the distance between them and finds herself pulling him into an embrace, his head fitting on top of her shoulder. She hugs his body tight, the way Muriel hugs Robin, hugs her, hugs everyone: like both their lives depend on it. Martha lets Clive cry the way she cried on his shirt when she lost the baby, and “Goodbye, Billy,” she mutters under her breath, so low she doesn’t even think Clive can hear. And that’s what Billy told her, at the hospital, after all, isn’t it? ‘Bye, Miss.’

When they leave, she looks at Clive as he steps into the passenger seat of his car and thinks of him, of Billy, of Sean and most importantly, of herself. The last two days have been tough, between prisons and cemeteries, and yet, it also feels like a new beginning, a chance to start over for the ones left standing. Martha sits behind the wheel, her left hand on the gears and thinks of what she said to Sean, yesterday, and for the first time, considers that it may apply to her, too. ‘You’ll live,’ she told him and -

Yeah, she decides. She’s going to live, too, whatever the hell that means.  

.

A new moment starts, then, for the both of them, with a breath of fresh air (of life – breathing, living life) that she allows herself to draw. That afternoon, she takes control, dries Clive’s tears and drives him home.

They’re silent on the way back; he stares out the window and doesn’t even bother complaining about her driving habits, fields and fields of unidentifiable crops passing before the shade of their sunglasses. Martha’s in charge of the stereo, soft Moriarty folk rolling in the background; she mouths the lyrics as she steers. Oh Jimmy, she recites. Oh, won’t you please come home, where the grass is green and the buffaloes roam? A conscious effort is made to drive under 70, never going too far from the slow lane; when Clive dozes off, about thirty minutes in, it occurs to her that she could just keep driving, her foot on the accelerator, before he could stop her. They would be in France in the morning, Spain in a couple of days. Not Barcelona, she decides, somewhere nice, deserted, with oranges and lemons hanging from trees, and the water warm over her feet.

“Clive,” she says, laying a hand on his shoulder as she turns the engine off, stops the car in the car park under his building. “You’re home.”

He stirs, yawns, looks around, takes an extra couple of seconds to comprehend where he is and how he got there in the first place. She knows the feeling. “Sorry,” he speaks, turning to face her. “Kind of passed out on you, there.”

Martha shrugs, the heat of the air already creeping back into the car. “Looked like you needed it,” she simply states, taking a gulp from the bottle of water standing between them. It’s lukewarm, now, leaves her thirstier than she originally was.

Clive smiles, nods, weakly, shifting in his seat. The clock in front of her reads 5:34 pm. “Do you want to come up? I’ll call you a cab,” he adds. “Least I can do.”

She had thought up this plan in her head while driving: she’d walk to the closest station and hop on the tube, try to clear her head a bit. But it’s hot – excruciatingly hot – now, and she really can’t bring herself to make the effort. William Charles Lamb, she still sees written on the tombstone every time she allows her thoughts to drift.

“Yeah, I’d love that,” she changes her mind and smiles, honest.

.

Clive’s apartment hasn’t changed much since the last time she was there. Everything is still spotlessly clean, apart from a few dirty dishes in the sink. “Sorry,” he says, quickly, stepping past the counter. “Didn’t have time to clean up this morning. What do you want? Tea? Coffee? Anything?”

“Tea’s fine, thanks.” Martha slides onto a stool, politely looks away as Clive reaches to turn the kettle on, grabbing a couple of mugs and bags from the cupboards around. He sets the cups down on the counter, drops a sugar into his; she shakes her head when he offers her one. The blinds are halfway down around the room, leaving his flat somewhat dark, but reasonably cool. Martha doesn’t want to think about the furnace her apartment probably is, at the moment.

His weight awkwardly shifts from left to right as they wait in silence for the water to boil. Clive always cleans up after himself, she knows, even in Chambers, hurrying to get to court; Martha’s never known him to leave a dirty cup on his desk. She watches him, carefully, gauging his every move, the way his jaw sets in concentration as he pours water into their mugs.

“Clive, you alright?” she asks, the words coming out of her mouth before she can really stop herself.

He quickly shrugs, turns around to put the kettle back onto its stand. “Of course, what d’you mean?”

“You forgot the tea bags.”

He looks down, looks up at her, curses under his breath. She takes one good look at him. The dark circles under his eyes, his hair in bad need of a cut, she thinks of his tears earlier and hates this, hates what they’ve become. She knows what he’s doing, putting on a brave face for her sake and all she wants to do is to let him know that just because she told him about something horrible that was on her mind a few days ago, doesn’t mean he can’t talk about what’s on his. “Sorry,” he says. “Distracted.”

Mugs emptied, tea bags added (this time), water poured: he passes the cup in her direction, watching her watching him, standing on the other side of the counter. The funny thing is: no matter how mad she gets at him, there’s still that look on his face, it catches her off guard, every time; it makes her heart beat faster, makes her want to smile up at him. It’s a curse, she thinks, but even though she’s not sure they should even be talking right now, she’s said goodbye to too many people, lately, and maybe she won’t be able to make it through without him.

He’s on cue when he speaks again; she wonders how much he can actually read on her face of what’s going on in her head. “So, where are you going?” he asks, his blue eyes locked on hers. “When you leave, I mean?”

It’s a good question, one that Martha doesn’t have the answer to, yet. She takes her time, trying to find an honest response she’d be happy with, sipping on her tea. It tastes familiar, warming the back of her mouth. “I don’t know,” she admits, reconsidering. “Somewhere nice,” she smiles. “I haven’t decided.”

And it’s true, she hasn’t. Her mind has been so cluttered with different things, lately, she just thinks she’ll do like before, go to the airport and point at the first destination that comes to mind. Clive smiles, nods, asks: “Abroad, maybe?”

He asks that with a smile on his face; it makes her wonder if he knows the answer already, knows that she made it to the airport before deciding to stay for Billy. He may have looked it up, come to think of it, put a plan in place for when she takes off again, a plan to follow her across the world if he has to. Not that he’d ever acknowledge it, of course, but maybe.

“I was thinking of heading to Bali,” she admits, looks away. It was the ticket she’d booked before everything happened and it’s a bit embarrassing, now, come to think of it. So bloody predictable: anyone who really wanted to would have found her in days, probably not what Mickey Joy had in mind when he told her to run for her life.

Clive seems to think it’s hilarious, actually, the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears. “Been there with an ex-girlfriend,” he smirks. “Largely overrated.”

Martha lets out a short laugh, absentmindedly playing with the hem of her skirt under the bar. There’s a story there, she feels, and she’s kind of curious about it, saves it in the corner of her brain for future use. “Have you looked at actual pictures of the beach there?” she laughs, shaking her head at him. “You’re going to have to find something more convincing than that to make me stay,” she tells him, a smile hidden behind her mug.

“I promise I will,” he says, laughter in his eyes as he looks up at her. She can see him think, though, the wheels turning inside his head, waits for him to speak. “Would it be so bad, though? To stay, I mean. The bar’s made for you, Marth.”

And, in truth, it takes her a moment to answer, to try to be honest with herself for once. “I don’t know,” she sighs, a sad smile on her face that doesn’t reach her eyes. Thinks. “I just – I kind of want to see if I can be something else for a little while,” she admits, looking down. “You ever felt that?”

“Yeah,” Clive chuckles, shakes his head. “When I was 19 and fucked off to Bali with a girl I’d met in Oxford,” he adds. Martha nods knowingly, laughing, can totally see it and at the same time, can’t. He must have been so different, back then. “Couldn’t stop arguing for two bloody weeks, worst holiday in history.”

Martha laughs, takes a sip, jokes: “Your fault, I’m sure.” Her smile reaches her eyes.

He chuckles, nods, too. “Evidently.”

.

When their laughter dies down and she’s finished the last drops of tea from her mug, though, Clive grabs both of their cups and turns around to place them in the sink. Martha thinks again of what he said, of what it would mean to leave. She thinks of her plan of going up to Bolton later this week, wonders if it would really help. She doesn’t think Clive will say anything else, now, thinks of reminding him that he needs to call her a taxi when: “Listen, Marth,” he starts, staring into her eyes. “If you’re going to leave, there’s one thing I wanted to say –”

And as soon as he opens his mouth, she feels a very acute need in her stomach to do the exact opposite, actually, gets the very strong urge to not listen, to sing like a child with her fingers stuck in her ears, stop the nice truce they’ve been enjoying from breaking into a million pieces. She thinks she begs him with her eyes.

“What I told Harriet –”

“Clive –”

“I’m sorry for one thing, alright? I’m sorry that I didn’t think of it,” he tells her, in a breath. She knows what it is, even before hearing the rest. “I’m sorry that I never thought of –” Clive trails off and for a short moment, seems to look for the appropriate words – Martha’s searched for them, already and there aren’t any. “Of the baby,” he settles, like he couldn’t find anything else to refer to it, a foetus that lived inside her for a little over three months and left a gaping hole when it went. “I didn’t think of the baby the way you had to. Not now, and not three yea-”

“Don’t.” They’ve never talked about it, never had the conversation, and frankly, that’s because Martha has never really wanted to. That night, when she came back from the hospital, she could have called him but chose not to. Just chain-smoked and stupidly cried over a child that would never be and the bit of innocence in her that died with it. “I was angry the other day, I should never have, I –”

Clive shakes his head, right then, running a hand over his face. “For God’s sake, Marth, for once in your life please let me finish,” he snaps, catches her look and she’s caught off guard by the need she sees in his eyes, stops moving, her mouth closing, listening. She hates that she’s hurt him, hates that about herself. “What I wanted to say is this: I panicked,” he speaks, pauses at the end of his words. “And, I was an arse. Back then, and again the other day. I’m sorry.”

The real Clive Reader, Martha thinks, hears, in the quiet of his living room. She listens to the low buzz of the fridge, the regular thud of his dishwasher. Frankly, she doesn’t know what to say, has never thought of him apologising like this, directly to her face.

It’s a change, a significant one she doesn’t know how to react to.  

“I panicked too, you know?” Martha finds herself telling him, before she can think. An admittance on her end as well and Clive looks surprised, the words leaving her mouth honest and unfiltered. “Three years ago,” she explains. “Had an appointment booked to, er, terminate. Asked Billy to keep me out of court, but Nick got our trial delayed and I –” she stops, tells him the truth. “I didn’t go. That’s when I told you.” Her fingers tap nervously, palm flat against her thigh; she smiles, almost to herself. “Not that you weren’t an arse, I mean, you were, but –”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

The pressure his stare bores onto her face forces her to cross his gaze, eventually, but it’s hard, really, to face the hurt in his eyes. Martha shakes her head, looks away. “Would you have wanted to know?”

Clive opens his mouth to reply automatically, and of course, she knows what he’d say now, but –

“Not now, Clive. Not in hindsight, knowing what happened. Back then, I mean. You and I, back then?”

You and I, back then, she means, weren’t the same people. She’d pushed him away after her stunt with Jérôme, horrified at the thought that the words he’d told her (It matters to you, I think) could somehow be true. Before Nottingham, she’d sworn to herself she and Clive would never, ever happen again. And even when it did, she labelled it as a lapse of judgment, a sweet, guilty misstep with truly terrifying consequences.

Alone in her bathroom when the unappealable verdict of her pregnancy came to light, the first thought that hit her mind was: fuck.

Clive averts his gaze, then, when she looks up; it takes him a good fifteen seconds to answer, like he’s replaying everything in his head. “Yeah,” he finally says. “Even back then. I’d probably have been a dick about it, but I’d have come with you, in the end,” he tells her, his gaze back on hers. “Or brought you chocolate when you got out. Something,” he adds. Almost against her will, she feels a smile tug at her lips. “Who knows, maybe I would even have earned that snog you promised ages ago.”

Martha laughs, this time, the sound of it quickly escaping her mouth. There’s a twinkle in her eyes when she says: “I never promised anything, Clive.”

“Not a complete no, then,” he smirks, flirts. With her free hand, she reaches over to gently slap his shoulder, pretending to roll her eyes. Clive has always been good, she knows, at wooing her into conversations she doesn’t want to have while still making her laugh, dancing on that tightrope, keeping her from walking out on him. They stay silent for a bit, basking in amused bliss, but she can read his body language, isn’t surprised when he speaks again. It’s a whisper, caught in his throat, like he barely dares. He should, Martha thinks when she hears the words coming out of his mouth. She thinks about it all the time.

“What do you think he would have been like?” he wonders. “Or she, I mean?”

Martha smiles to herself, discreet, closes her eyes. He would have been a boy, she thinks. Has no actual scientific basis for it, but that’s what she felt in her gut, for whatever it’s worth. With her eyes closed, she’d see him, playing football with Clive on a Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, wobbling around, three or four years old, shouting: “Mummy! I scored! Did you see that?”

She sits up, now, reaches for a paper towel in front of her, folds and unfolds it to keep her hands busy.

“My best guess is blond, blue-eyed, and overly argumentative, Clive,” she tells him, attempting a joke, but even when she sees him smile, shy, the look on his face remains serious, like he knows exactly what she’s doing. Martha shakes her head, blinks, feels the tears clouding at the back of her eyes, that familiar lump in her throat. “I don’t know, I try not to think about it,” she lies, looking away.  

His fingers find their way to hers, the three clear lines of his veins visible on the back of his hand, and she feels a light squeeze, lets herself feel his touch against her skin. “Yeah,” he nods, catching her glance. “Sorry.”

Martha doesn’t want him to apologise, to tell the truth. There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s his right as much as hers, she thinks, to imagine, to ask, question what could have been. It’s just always been difficult, for her, to do so without letting herself be submerged in the depths of melancholy, and she tries to explain that in the way that she looks at him, then, catches his gaze and can’t seem to look anywhere else. She remembers them, three years ago, and how different they were, before either of them took silk, before, well, anything, really. There was an innocence in the way he looked at her, their banter light and easy, playing with each other’s nerves. She remembers them at twenty-five, too, and the countless hours they spent holed up in their shared office, pouring over dozens of files, her vision becoming blurry on the hundreds of pages of small print. Martha wonders where that time flew; it feels odd, to think of a life without him. She’s lost Billy, already, and even when she doesn’t know how to forgive him, Martha also doesn’t know how she’d cope losing Clive, too.

As she turns away, she feels his palm over hers, his thumb running over her knuckles. She glances up at him, his eyes blue and intense in the semi-darkness of the room. His right hand finds the side of her face, reaching over the counter, skin rough against her cheek. She leans into him more than she needs to.  

“I –” he says, trails off. In the blink of an eye, he looks away for the shortest of times; when she finds his eyes again, she can see him thinking, settling on his words. “I really want to kiss you right now,” Clive says, and Martha can’t help but smile, her heart beating fast in her ears. She feels twenty-five again, with a boy that feels like a friend.

She bites her lip, pretends to hesitate. There’s something really empowering, she’s got to admit, about him asking. “Go on, then,” she breathes, hardly above a whisper. “You’ve got my blessing.”

A short laugh escapes Clive’s mouth before he straightens up, looking determined to do it properly, walking around the kitchen island to meet her. Martha doesn’t move from her stool, merely eyeing him as he moves, only spreading her legs enough for Clive to stand in front of her. It’s hard not to smile against his lips when he finally reaches down, softly, his mouth barely open, just enough to taste hers. The kiss is short, almost chaste - nothing like their hungry kisses in Nottingham, or back in that empty courtroom – and yet she’s certain that right at this moment, he steals a piece of her heart. It’s intimate, secretive almost, like she’s the only person in the world.  

He pulls back, ever so slightly, lingers close. “Martha, I –” he starts, and this time she brings him back to her before he has time to find his words, unspoken confessions dying on his lips. She doesn’t know what he was going to say – doesn’t care – his mouth opening over hers, she slides off the stool and stands on her tiptoes to push him against the counter, her hands in his hair, hips against his. That summer afternoon, Clive tastes like boy and Earl Grey.

When Martha breaks the kiss, reluctantly, she looks into his eyes and it’s sort of a secret but she catches herself wondering what they would have been like, in an alternate universe, where she wouldn’t have miscarried, where he’d have gotten silk the first time around, where she wouldn’t have swooned, wouldn’t have lost Sean, lost Billy, lost him. Martha breathes in, lets herself relax and close her eyes, her forehead against his chin.

“I want to do that again,” she admits, looking up at him.

Clive grins, like someone whose plan is working. “That’s if you don’t go to Bali,” he says.

She nods, knows what he wants her to say, shakes her head and repeats what she’s already told him, a concession of sorts. “I’m here,” she tells him. “For now.”

Clive’s eyes close for a second; he nods. “Okay.”

Martha doesn’t know how long they stay like this, in his kitchen, her body pressed against his, just staring into each other’s eyes. It turns into a game, eventually, of who will be the first to look away. Clive pulls a face, in the end; it makes her laugh and she curses under her breath, conceding defeat. Reluctantly, Martha pulls away from him, untangling their fingers. “Wine?” she asks, grinning.

Clive lets out a soft laugh; it comes out in multiple breaths like when she’s puffing on a cigarette. “Open bottle of white in the fridge, red’s in there,” he says, pointing at one of the cupboards. “Your choice.”

She nods, stepping away and busying herself, setting a couple of glasses down on the counter, opening the fridge. Considering the heat, Martha goes for white, the slightly tinted liquid reflecting filtering glimpses of sunlight.

Martha takes his old spot standing on the other side of the island as he sits on her stool, clinking her glass against his. After they’ve both taken a sip, she adds, smiling:

“See? I am here, drinking with you.”

.

Nothing happens, that night.

He calls her a cab around 1 a.m. and insists on paying for it (‘it was my fault you had to come out here, after all,’), squeezes her hand through the open window before the car drives off and she thinks about how funny it sounds, that phrase. ‘We kissed,’ her friends would say, in college, in uni. ‘But that’s it, nothing happened.’ It’s mad, really, because nothing happened and yet as she closes her eyes, sitting against the leather of the seats, vaguely listening to her driver as he chats away in Hindi on the phone, she can still feel Clive’s lips against hers, his fingers over her palm and she’s a teenager again, playing a couple of kisses over and over in her head, and what she said, and what he said, and that smile that has yet to leave her face.

She’s had her fair share of the wine, but she doesn’t think that’s what lulls her to sleep.

She feels safe, that night, in her bed, thinking about him.

Chapter Text

v.

We sit at a table, face to face; queen takes pawn, check on, check mate. I feel your foot brush against my leg. I’m not that easily led.

Get Your Way – Jamie Cullum

In retrospect, Clive always looked like he knew what he was doing. He seemed to have that ten-year plan stuck in his head, thought of things like career progression and advancement, took cases because if he won them, he knew that they would steer him in the right direction. Martha never knew how to do that. The future always shaped as a succession of people in her head, conversations, cases, one after the other, in a never-ending loop. Alarm, get up, breakfast, teeth, chambers, con, court, drinks, files, bed and repeat. She never had time to make projections, wonder where this was all going.

The past, she doesn’t like to dwell on, either. It will all go away with the wind when her hair turns grey and the memories she stores away, safe, like precious, shiny diamonds, will slip between her fingers and everything that will matter will only consist of the here and now.

She likes the here and now, the present, the ground under her feet and the air in her lungs.

When they were kids, she used to sit on Sean’s bedroom floor, hugging her knees in the dark and: ‘Breathe,’ he used to say. ‘Just breathe.’

Today, her here and now is Robin’s case in court. Before visiting Billy and Sean last week, they were waiting on a verdict, and when Monday comes, Martha’s sitting at the bench, back straight against the wood, wig and gown on, like Superman coming out of the phone box. There’s talking, and talking, and talking, and a recollection of the teachers in school, the way they spoke, and spoke, and spoke before handing out the grades. Just like back then, Martha waits.

“Not guilty.”

A breath. A smile against her lips. Outside, Muriel hugs her with sunshine in her eyes and a cigarette is smoked at the edge of the window of the robbing room, the daylight warm against Martha’s features. The last client walks – a tangible, comforting walk – and the barrister grins, ash at the tip of her fingers.  It’s the start of something new, Martha feels, even if she doesn’t know what of, yet.

.

Sometimes, Martha Costello can be a bit shallow. Likes to tell people when she gets a win but out on the street, she takes her time before calling Clive. It’s not that she doesn’t want to – the shy touch of his lips still lingers against hers from a few nights ago – it’s just that she wants to relish the feeling of grace that the verdict has awarded a tiny bit longer. She’ll be brought back to reality gradually, like a trickle of tap water filling a glass.

When she does tell him, though, for someone on the white ribbons, Clive is oddly happy about the news. “I told you,” he says, but in a good way, a friendly way; Martha hears his words and beams into the telephone. She’s walking down the streets of central London with her link to him pressed against her ear; it’s the first time in years that she’s not rushing to be anywhere, just watching people push past, her handbag tight against her side. She thinks that she might go get a snack at Pret in a bit, maybe try to fix her phone screen, look at shops on the way.

Martha skirts around an agglutinated mass of tourists, with audio guides in their ears and a man in a bright shirt speaking into a microphone, leading the group with a yellow umbrella. The air is damp, the sky grey, people tired and irritated with the heat of the past few days; they all hope for a summer storm.

“So, what are you up to, tonight?” Clive asks, in her ear.

She thinks for a bit. “Sleep? Haven’t had much of that in –” Martha jokes, reflects, counts the weeks since the beginning of Sean’s trial, since – “Well, in fifteen years, really, so -”

Clive speaks into the phone but the sound on her end gets interrupted by an ambulance rushing by, blaring its siren straight into her ears. Martha apologises, once it’s gone, smiles. “Say that again?”

“I was saying,” Clive starts as she almost bumps into a couple who abruptly stop in front of her to look at a map. She steps aside, rolls her eyes. “What if I offered to take you out tonight?”

Martha’s amused, smiling teasingly into the receiver, can’t help but think about their kiss, the other night. “What, like a date?” she quips, mocking the idea, wondering what the both of them would look like in the awkwardness of a pompous restaurant, her standing and waiting for him to pull a chair for her to sit on.

She quits laughing, though, when she hears some sort of short silence on the other end, raises the volume of her speaker. “Yes,” Clive finally says. “I’m asking you out on a date, actually.”

Martha stops in her tracks, reflexively gripping at the phone; some idiot pushes past her, cursing. Clive’s voice sounds a lot like a dare but she’s not quite sure whether he’s daring her to say yes, or to say no. She bites her lip, smile nervous, tense, for a second. You’re leaving town tomorrow, the voice in her head argues. It’s her plan: visit her mum in Bolton, stay a few days, and then go. So: this is a bad idea, her brain points out. Don’t. Yet, she smiles when she speaks, hears herself try to alleviate the tension. To be honest, the voice in her head is very used to being ignored. “Is this another attempt at luring me away from Bali?”

Clive laughs, seems to ponder for a second. “Well, it’s certainly an attempt at luring you into another kiss,” he admits, joking but also not, and she shakes her head, laughing, and well, recklessness has always known how to get the better of her, every once in a while. He knows she’s leaving anyway, she tells herself, maybe they can play pretend for one more night, like they used to. “Come on, Marth. A friend from Oxford will be playing with his band,” Clive adds, probably trying to cover the silence he hears on her side of the conversation. Martha doesn’t realise it, but she’s holding her breath. “There’ll be booze, dancing –”

For goodness’ sake, she laughs to herself. “Okay, fine, Clive Reader,” she finally sighs, real smile and fake annoyance in her voice. “I’ll go on a date with you.”

.

What she tells herself is: it’s just a night out with Clive. No expectations. Yet, for some reason, it’s also: a bath, nails, make-up and a new dress. Nothing fancy, just a nice dress, a light shade of blue with white lining over the seams. It’s flattering, close to her waist; when he picks her up at seven – sharp – and she opens her front door to meet him, Clive stands awkwardly with his mouth slightly open for a second; she catches him tracing the curves of her body, his look lingering on her cleavage a bit too long to be appropriate.

“I don’t do sex on a first date,” she jokes, lies, pushing past him to close the door.

He laughs, of course, and she bites her lip to keep herself from joining in.

Martha knows what it looks like, at this point in time. They’ve been so broken, the past few years, that it seems like all they ever did was to seek each other for comfort before tearing everything apart, repeating the process time and time again, like they couldn’t be together without hurting each other. The truth is, though, in the past, they had fun, too. So much fun. She remembers one time when she distracted him with a kiss while she rummaged through the top drawer of her bedside table (he probably thought she was looking for a condom, come to think of it) and quickly clasped cuffs around his wrists. The look on his face when he felt them – ‘Where in hell did you get those?’

She smiled, enigmatic. ‘You’re not the only one with copper friends.’

Clive puffed out a laugh, looked like he couldn’t even begin to believe her. ‘You’re joking.’ When she didn’t answer, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you even have the keys?’

Martha bit her lip, grinned. ‘I don’t know, Clive, what do you think?’

He looked at her and she felt him harden against her, thought to herself that this was already working way better than she had anticipated. He tried to kiss her but she pulled away slightly, out of reach, looked at him laying there under her with his wrists tied up above his head, locked her stare with his. ‘Fuck,’ he said, unable to keep his eyes off her. ‘You’re wild.’

She laughed, started dropping kisses down his chest, nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe. We’ll see.’

She looks at him now and blushes at the memory, would never tell him about the things she remembers, the times her belly hurt from laughing or when butterflies coursed through her stomach, the way she sometimes looks at him and crosses her legs, trying to chase off very risqué thoughts from her brain. It’s mad to think that this is actually their first date. He raises an eyebrow at her when she claims not to do sex on a first date and smiles. “That’s very unfortunate,” he says, shaking his head.

.

The band is surprisingly decent.

Sure, they’re no Joy Division, by any standard, but Martha has fun dancing and drinking with Clive, making silly faces and letting her hips rock to the music. They walk out of the bar at around half past nine, after the band breaks and before another one comes in. She has yet to finish her Corona, a half-slice of lemon floating around the middle of the bottle and they stand on the pavement, the air even hotter out here than it was inside. Clive’s beaming at her, looks a bit like he did when she first met him.

“Why, hello, hello, there!” A shout resonates, coming behind them. Martha turns around and sees a guy rushing out of the venue in their direction - dark hair falling across his face, some sort of tribal-y shaped tattoo under the hem of the short sleeve of his t-shirt, she recognizes him as the guitarist. He pats Clive on the shoulder, causes him to turn around. “You guys look like you had fun!”

They both go in for a full hug, almost shaking each other up like you shake a tree for fruits to fall out, like men, for some reason, always do. A bit of healthy praise ensues (“Yeah, it was great! You really did well back there!”), followed by a friendly catch up; Martha politely takes a step back, listening. Yeah, you still live out here, don’t you? and, me, no, Marjorie couldn’t stand London with the kids anymore, had to move out to Essex, much quieter.

It might be funny and a bit ignorant on Martha’s part but she’d never really considered Clive having friends before, or even having a life outside of Chambers and girls, for that matter. It may be a bit telling, considering the desert of her own personal life but it’s also nice, to see this side of him. The guitarist lights himself a cigarette and she watches the both of them as the smoke fills the air, debates putting her beer down and getting her own pack and lighter out but decides against it, steals a sip from her drink instead.

“So, Clive,” his friend says, finally, glancing at Martha. “You going to introduce us?”

She smiles against the rim of the bottle, raises an eyebrow at Clive. He grins back at her. “Yeah, right,” he says, stepping aside. “Pete, this is Martha,” he says. “Martha Costello, she’s a, –” She’s not sure Pete hears the millisecond break that Clive takes to think of a correct qualifier, but she definitely does. “She’s a friend. Marth, this is Pete Barlow.”

She extends her palm to shake his but he pulls it gently towards him instead, his fingers brushing over hers, taking it to his mouth. He places a kiss on the back of her hand and bows, a little, before letting go. She eyes Clive by her side, notices him step a bit closer to her, smiles to herself, shaking her head.

Men, she thinks.  

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Martha Costello,” Pete says, smiling, insisting on the last syllable of her name. He nods at Clive, jokes. “You know, if you keep bringing pretty ladies to my gigs like that, I might even let you in for free!”

Martha laughs, loud and genuine, and the three of them end up chatting amicably as they finish their beers – Pete works for HSBC, she learns, his wife sells clothes for cats, dogs and ferrets (it sounds very specific, she hardly refrains from asking who the fuck buys such things).

When Pete heads back inside to pack up with his band, Clive offers to get proper dinner, and Martha can’t help but chuckle, the mental image she’d had earlier of the both of them awkwardly looking into each other’s eyes in some high-end Italian restaurant popping back into her brain. She declines, opts for fish and chips instead, her fingers end up smelling like vinegar when she pours about half a bottle’s worth onto her plate to keep him from stealing more of her food, laughing loudly as their legs brush under the cheap Formica table. It feels more like them, she thinks.

They’re walking down an empty street feeling like they’ve eaten enough for a lifetime when the way Clive spoke (she’s a – friend) pops back into Martha’s brain. If she were brave, she would ask him whether it was just a handy shortcut for him to describe what they are, or if he really thinks it, can still look at her the way he used to. There’s a world, though, between being people who tell each other everything and being people who ask each other everything so she doesn’t – ask, that is – chooses a safer a topic, instead. Martha doesn’t know if she’s not brave enough to ask, or not brave enough to know, really.

“So, what did Pete mean, exactly? By you keeping bringing pretty ladies to his gigs?”

An uncomfortable laugh leaves Clive’s mouth, a sharp contrast with her playful tone; she’s teasing, he knows, and yet he bites his lip and looks away, a bit red in the cheeks. The awkwardness makes her want to laugh, Martha loosely wonders if this is one of his regular first date hang outs, wonders if he has that kind of place in his address book. In truth, she kind of likes the idea of him trying to woo her like one of the girls he wants to impress.   

When he doesn’t answer right away, though, she grabs his hand, makes sure he stops so that she can step in front of him, look straight into his eyes. They’re in a small, deserted spot at the end of a street that goes downhill, facing each other, no one around.

“You’re going to tell me what happened?” she asks, eyebrow raised.

“Nothing.”

Martha puffs out a laugh, steps closer to him. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, fine,” he pouts, almost smiling, against his will, it seems. “Once, alright? We were in Oxford together. There was this girl I brought to his concert, –”

“Let me guess,” Martha cuts him off, shifting. She’s standing about fifteen centimetres from him now, can feel his breath against her face. “She chose his mad music skills over your admin law books?”

Clive laughs a bit, smiling; she sees it in his eyes. “Something like that, yeah.”

Instinctively it seems, his hands find her hips, keeping her close. Her lips are inches away from his mouth; she considers simply crossing the distance between them, letting herself kiss him gently, her body pushing against his. She’s keeping that for later, though, and even if it sort of feels strange saying that when they almost had a child together, a little chase never hurt nobody. So, instead, Martha starts humming, moving her hips to the rhythm of her voice, against his. They covered She’s Lost Control at the gig, so it’s stuck in her head now and, “ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,” she goes, her eyes locked on his. She does it long enough - just humming, dancing, close - that she feels her stomach tense a bit, something akin to want bubbling under her skin, doesn’t think she’ll be able to hold on much longer before touching her lips to his. She thinks she feels him tense in his jeans, too, bites her lip. She’s not going to lie: it’s a bit flattering.

Finally, she stops humming, leans in, turns her mouth to the side of his neck and speaks into his ear. “Come on,” she says, trying to sound way sexier than she actually feels. “Let’s get another drink.”

When Martha moves away and leads the way down to the corner of the street, she thinks she hears Clive curse under his breath, quickly collecting himself before he finally catches up with her.

.

They stop at another bar a couple of streets down, an unlikely mix between an Irish pub (wood everywhere, a mile’s worth of beers on tap) and a trendy hipster hub (soft acoustic music on the speakers, light bulbs flaunting golden filaments). They settle in a booth, his thigh touching hers; he gets another beer, she orders a glass of red wine.

Martha watches his fingers type the pin to his debit card, somewhat mesmerised. “You know,” he starts, putting his card back into his wallet. “You’re supposed to at least pretend you’re willing to pay your share.”

She smiles at him, cocks her head, chin resting against her palm. “On a first date?”

“Yeah,” he nods. He’s looking at her again, feels like he hasn’t looked anywhere but her all night. “That’s what girls do now. It’s called feminism.”

She puffs out a laugh, steals a sip of her wine. She reapplied lipstick in the bathroom, it leaves a kiss on her glass.

(He took note of that, earlier, on the way to the gig, glancing at her. ‘The red’s back?’ he asked, smiling.

‘The red’s back.’)

“And you men are all too happy to oblige, I’m sure,” she teases, now, toying with her drink, the stem rolling between her middle and ring fingers. Clive chuckles, nods, drinks. “Well, I won’t be that much of a great date, then,” Martha adds, smiles. “Cause, I don’t have a job anymore, so I’ll let you pay for everything, let me tell you.”

“Ah then, I don’t know,” he laughs, moves and only barely pretends to leave. “Maybe I might head home.”

In truth, she’s grateful that he doesn’t ask her what the hell she’s doing with her life, now. That he just lets it go, assumes that she’ll figure it out, because it’s probably the one thing people are talking about behind her back, the one question that systematically gets whispered at the mention of her name. If not the bar, then what? As if she held the keys to something they didn’t.

She didn’t tell her mum she’d quit, on the phone, earlier, couldn’t bring herself to voice it out. ‘I’m just taking a holiday,’ Martha told her, pulling things out of her wardrobe, trying to find comfortable shoes that matched the dress.

‘You never take time off, I’m just a bit surprised -’

Martha rolled her eyes, decided on the shorter black heels. (As if, really, her mum had ever paid any attention to her career, anyway. She didn’t even show up when she got sworn in.) ‘Look, Mum, do you want me to come over tomorrow or not?’

‘Of course, darling, that’s not what I’m –’

Looking at Clive, now, Martha feels like he’s the only person with whom she doesn’t need to explain herself, or justify her life decisions along the way. He was there for Sean and Jody Farr, and Brendon Kay, and frankly feels like the only one who would understand, right now.

When she looks up at him, Clive seems lost in thought, too; Martha decides to make an effort at conversation, for once. “So, tell me,” she asks him, taking another couple of swigs of wine. “Since you’re so experienced, what do people talk about on first dates?”

He turns a bit to face her, smiles and pretends to hum, reflecting. “Let me see... The weather.” She chuckles. “Is a big one. Also, upbringing – where do you come from? Parents, pets, and the like. What do you do for a living? Weird hobbies? Women lying when they’re asked about their age… That kind of thing.”

Martha laughs, drinks, and stumbles over her words a bit. The alcohol is definitely starting to flow through her veins; it’s a nice, cosy feeling. “Okay, so let me try this. Nice to meet you,” she starts, loosely shaking his hand under the table. His fingers are warm against hers. “My name’s Martha. I’m, er, thirty-two years old -”

Clive bursts out laughing, lets go of her hand to grab his drink, shaking his head in disbelief. “Don’t you usually say thirty-five?” he counters, teasing.

Martha’s eyebrows rise, it’s hard to keep a straight face. “Well, of course, but that’s when I’m not supposed to be lying,” she admits, eyes set on his, like there is genuine, unfaultable logic in this.

Clive chuckles, gestures with his hand. “Okay, then, go on.”

She takes a deep breath, pretends that she’s about to reveal some sort of big secret about herself, one that she’s never told him before. Martha doesn’t know what, exactly, but there’s something kind of hot about the whole role-playing thing. “Okay, so. Martha. Thirty-two. From Bolton, up North.” He smirks and she playfully hits his shoulder with her free hand. “I had a cat, growing up, but it died.”

“So, see, that’s a red flag. What happened? Did she kill it?” Clive asks, pretending to tick a box on an imaginary paper. “Is she a psychopath?”

“Oh, shut up,” she scolds. “Anyway. I’m currently unemployed, used to be a barrister.”

“Oh, so you’re a lawyer, then?” he asks, leaning forward, hands on the table. “So, I’ve got this problem with my landlord –” he jokes and she bursts out laughing again, can’t even bring herself to chastise him for interrupting her.

Anyone who’s ever done law has been there, she knows. Guests at dinner parties, estranged family members at Christmas gatherings harassing you for legal advice, refusing to understand that no one knows all the law by heart. Also, that you don’t work for free. ‘I don’t practice in that area,’ she’ll say and: ‘But you must have at least an idea,’ they’ll counter, as if an idea from her on a bit of law she’s never looked at since her second year of university is somehow more valid than that of the guy who owns the pub down the street.

“I mostly do criminal law,” she tells Clive, her date, as he looks up at her.

“Ew, criminals,” he says. Again, the ticking motion with his hand. “Definitely a psychopath, then.”

She pretends to roll her eyes at him, good sport. Maybe it’s the wine that’s getting to her head, but this is fun, Martha thinks. “Er, what else? Oh yeah, the weather. Hot. Scorching hot, actually, when is the bloody rain going to come, d’you reckon?” Clive laughs, shaking his head. “Parents? Father deceased. Mum works shifts at the local Tesco. And hobbies? What are hobbies? When does one find time for them?”

They’re both grinning at each other like mad idiots by the time the last call rolls around and because it’s a Monday night, they’re almost the last patrons in the bar. When Clive heads for the toilet, Martha steps out for a smoke. As soon as the door to the exit is opened, though, she’s at least got the answer to one of the questions that have been on everybody’s minds all day.

Suddenly, it’s an assault on her senses. She hears it before she sees it, feels it on her arm as soon as she ventures too far away from the slim protection afforded by the ledge of the building. Mostly, she smells it, though.

She’s always associated the scent of rainstorms with childhood. A lot of people do, to tell the truth, the smell of hot, burnt ground being hit by heavy drops feeling kind of like the smell of freshly cut grass, triggering different bittersweet memories in everyone. Hers? They centre on summer holidays spent in her grandparents’ backyard, picking blackberries from the bushes, her fingers wet and sticky, washed away by the rain. Martha stays motionless, standing in awe for a good minute before lighting her cigarette, protecting it with her palm, eyes shut, listening to the drumming of the rain on the pavement.

Eventually, she feels the door next to her open again, shoves her arm in front of Clive to prevent him from stepping into the showers. There’s a moment of confusion where he looks at her and at the ground before him and still tries to move before it sinks in. Slowly, carefully, he steps out of the pub and joins her under the ledge of the roof. They’re standing very close, now, the entire left side of her body touching his. “Holy hell,” he swears, staring at the pouring rain.

The pavement is so dry it doesn’t really absorb any of the water that falls, puddles and puddles scattering over the roads and side streets. She watches as cars rush by on the main road a few meters to her left, splashing waves of rain around them. “Yeah,” Martha just says, taking another drag from her cigarette, puffing out smoke. Clive coughs.

She rolls her eyes, gives a slight shove to his shoulder. “Oh, come on,” he says, his tone indignant. “I’m not going to pretend I like it,” he groans, turning his head towards hers. She breathes out again.

“No, but you also don’t have to pretend to cough every time I light one up.”

They’re reaching the very end of their evening, she realises, and suddenly she can’t look at his face anymore, quickly turning around, focusing on the rain instead. Her heart is hammering in her chest, setting a different beat from that of the drops that hit the floor; she feels like every one of her nerve endings that touch his side are causing a shiver to run down her spine. She’s very careful not to train her eyes on him, trying to regulate her breathing.

“I’m not pretending to cough, I cough,” he insists, a smile in his voice. Butterflies dance in her stomach. “Your smoking makes me cough. I mean, I even had asthma, as a kid, so –”

“Clive,” she says, looking up.

Martha turns her body on a one-eighty to face him, sees his mouth remaining slightly open, the wheels turning inside his head. She’s slightly outside of the safety net that the ledge of the building has provided them so far, feels heavy raindrops hit her back and presses against him.

“Shut up,” she breathes, her cigarette falling to the floor.

Martha kisses him.

It’s hard to put into words, really, because as far as kisses go: it’s probably the best one she’s ever had. And she’s not saying that because it’s him, or because it’s them, right here and now, but because she doesn’t think she’s ever felt that way with him before, or anyone else, for that matter. Not in Nottingham, not in that empty courtroom at the Bailey, just –

His hands tangle in her hair, pulling her close, her mouth opening under his. She steps between his legs, her own hands roaming everywhere they can reach, over the back of his head and his chest, and his hips; she can feel his heart beat even faster than hers under her fingertips. It’s like they’re the only people in the world, like this is all she ever wants to do for the rest of her life.

The door to the pub opens from the inside next to them. Martha jumps at the noise, abruptly pulls away from Clive’s mouth. He seems confused as she quickly looks to her right where, unaware, one of the waiters walks out of the place, barely glancing at them, locking the doors behind him. “Crazy weather, eh?” he says as he steps away into the rain, not waiting for a response.

Once he’s gone, Martha looks up at Clive. Clive looks down at her. One, two, three, she counts in her head before they both burst out laughing at one, so hard her stomach starts to hurt. She can’t stop thinking about how ridiculous they fucking are, snogging each other outside a pub like two drunk teenagers.

A bit dazed by the kiss and by the speed at which a single, uncaring individual was able to bring them back to reality, they take a few half seconds to calm down, giggling like mad, shaking their heads at each other. Martha feels young, tonight, a bit silly.  

They do recover, though, eventually, and when she looks at Clive (really looks at him), he seems to have been struck by lightning with a big, stupid grin on his face. Not knowing what to say, she opts for an apology, filling the silence between them. “Sorry, I just –”

His fingers wrap around her wrist, he grins. “God, don’t you ever apologise for doing that,” he smiles, thumb tracing circles over her skin.

Martha laughs, loud and clear in the night, leans into him. “Yeah,” she teases, her mouth inches away from his. “You think?”

This time, it’s his turn to close the gap between them, his hands resting on her hips, tugging her towards him. When he pulls away, Martha’s heart seems to have settled a bit, her breathing oddly more even. She doesn’t really want to move, though, doesn’t want to leave him.

“So,” she starts, stares straight into his eyes. She can see there’s bit of worry, in there: he’s not sure what she’s going to say. She kind of likes that, likes that he doesn’t know everything about her, either. “You know that thing I said when you picked me up earlier?”

Clive chuckles softly, nodding, his right hand resting comfortably on her hip.

“Well, I could be persuaded to, er, disregard that policy,” she adds, biting her lip.

Clive laughs, then, teases her with his hand on her skin. It’s strange how everything that happened between them, a couple weeks back, and their fight, and the bloody, messy aftermath on her part, it almost seems like a very distant, foggy memory. “Yeah?” he smiles. “Persuaded how?”

Slowly, she leans in, whispers in his ear. “Lots of hard work and dedication, I’d say.”

He laughs again, lightly this time, but she does feel him tense again, like earlier in the street, through his jeans and the fabric of her dress. They stay like this for a moment, silent, looking straight into each other’s eyes, waiting. From the intensity of his stare when he eyes her back, Martha briefly wonders he’s not going to force the door of the bar back open and take her there instead, on the booth they just sat on. She shakes her head at the image, finally feels his hand grabbing hers. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s run and try to get a cab, shall we?”

.

By the time they get past Martha’s front door, they are drenched to the bone. She already suspected that finding a cab in this weather was going to be difficult, but at one a.m. on a Tuesday morning, it turned out to be nearly impossible. By the time they found one, after spending a good twenty minutes running from doorstep to doorstep, laughing, trying to shield themselves from the rain, there wasn’t really any point left in running, anymore.

She doesn’t think it matters. Her messy, wet, blond curls cascade down her face – all that work she’d put into straightening her hair gone to waste – he gently pushes her against the wall of her hallway, his damp shirt clinging to his skin. She doesn’t care. Doesn’t care about the pools of water they’re leaving behind them like guilty footsteps on the floor, doesn’t care to turn on the light, or to make him take his wet shoes off before they ruin her carpet. She never wants to take her hands off him, never wants her mouth to leave his. They’ve done this before – of course - but the strangest thing is: she can’t keep her eyes off him.

She’s quick undoing the buttons of his shirt, untucking it from his trousers, her hands streaming up and down his chest. Okay, she considers, feeling his skin under her palms, so this:

Sure, she’s not shallow, and typical, and weak, and doesn’t think a man must automatically be strong and broad-shouldered, and square-jawed to be attractive. She’s had enough people in her life before him to know that. So, sure, she’s above that. But sure, also, it just so happens that Clive is strong and broad-shouldered, and square-jawed, and as she runs her fingers over his stomach and feels his abs contract as he bends down to kiss her, she’s got to admit that, okay, it sort of is somewhat of a turn on. “Bloody hell,” he swears when his shirt finally hits the floor after three unsuccessful attempts at pulling it off him, water sticking to his every pore. Frankly, she can’t suppress a laugh from exiting her mouth.

She thanks the Gods up there that the dress she’s picked is flowy enough that it doesn’t cling that hard to her skin.

.

He teases her as they stand against the wall of her hallway, mouth on her neck dropping kisses along the way as it travels to suck on a very particular spot below her ear, hard; it makes her toes curl – she can’t believe he remembers that, for fuck’s sake. One of his hands is balancing them, still, on the side of her shoulder, while the other reaches low below her knee, slowly moving along her calf to the inside of her thigh. She feels him playing with the hem of her pants, the lace soft against his fingers, and with that and whatever he thinks he’s doing to her neck she can’t suppress a loud moan that escapes her mouth unannounced, so loud she feels him chuckling against her. When two of his fingers snake past her underwear, though, she –

“Wait,” she whispers.

She doesn’t know what makes her say it, or how the word even leaves her mouth without her biting it down but it does, intruding, like the monster under her bed.

Clive quickly steps away from her, hand dropping to his side. He remains close, though, close enough that she can still feel droplets falling from his hair onto her skin. Martha looks up at him, stares. His fingers brush a curl behind her ears. “What’s wrong?” he asks, muttering against her skin. “You alright?”

The truth is: the monster under her bed has nothing childish about it anymore. It’s everything, from the memories of a dark and dirty pub last week to the shouts and breaking dishes that echoed from Sean’s apartment at home when she was a kid, his mother’s face beaten and swollen as she sat against the wall, crying while the two of them rushed in. They were fifteen.  

Martha has to remind herself that she’s not there, anymore. That she’s not bleeding or shaking, barefoot in the street, that she’s here, now, in her flat, with Clive. We’re here, she thinks, tries to hammer it into her brain, looking at him, and suddenly, she catches herself smiling, smiling so large it hurts, so large it could split her cheeks open, eyes sparkling and blinking away the tears of relief she didn’t know had flooded her eyes just moments before. Clive smiles, too, a bit confused and blissfully unaware, simply waiting for her to say something, or give him the go-ahead if she wants to. Martha’s pretty sure he doesn’t understand what he just did by stepping back, really, and that’s the best thing about it.

Quietly, she reaches for the back of his neck and pulls him to her, kisses him wide, open mouthed, with everything she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to put in words. His right hand is soft against her bare shoulder, tracing circles on her skin, at the junction of the hem of her dress. She likes it there, she smiles to herself, it’s comforting, soothing but right now, she thinks she liked it better where it was before. She’s feeling bold, tonight – or she’s pretending to be, at least, because well, we all want to be better people than we are, don’t we? - so she laces her fingers with his and takes them back down against the inside of her thigh, tracing a wet line to the lace of her underwear. She feels him take control of their movements, just then, hands teasing her over the fabric. He must feel the wetness between her legs when he speaks, she thinks, because she feels it too.

“Shit, Marth,” he says against her ear, a cheeky smile on his lips.

She smirks, mouth dancing over his collarbone “Don’t pride yourself too much, that’s mostly the rain.”

He bursts out laughing, then, into her hair. “Ouch, way to boost a man’s ego.”

The funny thing is: she’s never really been into banter, during sex. In that department, she’s more of a show than a tell kind of person, if you’d like, preferring action to millions of instructions and compliments thrown up in the air. Yet, tonight, anything that he says in that low, husky tone of his, it both makes her want to roll her eyes at him and want to get him inside her, right now, like there’s no middle ground. She smiles against him, trying to think of anything but him, attempting to regain some self-control. “I’m just stating the facts, here,” she manages to say, breath caught in her throat.

Martha feels Clive chuckling, his body moving against hers in waves, mouth back on her neck. “Hmhm,” he hums, against her skin; she shivers all the way down her spine.

“Just fuck me, will you?”

It’s out of her mouth before it really makes its way to the back of her brain - it’s her body speaking, really - and Clive laughs, bursts out laughing against her; she can’t bring herself to even be a little bit mad. He shakes his head at her, staring into her eyes, and: “Impatient, are we?” he says but is quick to follow her when she proceeds to gently push him off and drags his sorry arse down the hall to her bedroom, unzipping her dress and pulling it over her shoulders. She smirks when she sees him as he watches it fall to the floor, dazed. 

The rest, she thinks, is probably not worth getting into. It’s acquired taste, really, and memory, so to speak, discovering new things, trying out old ones and hoping they have the desired effect. It’s better than it ever was, objectively, because they know each other better, she thinks, through the last few years, and because they do, amazingly, remember a thing or two about each other’s bodies. Clive, of course, doesn’t fail to notice the differences.

His mouth is working on her nipple, a couple of fingers slid inside her, his thumb on her clit; she’s breathing heavily when he suddenly stops all movement, his fingers slipping out of her. She groans in frustration, opening her eyes to see him sort of hunched over to her side, inspecting a patch of skin below her armpit at the top of her ribs, by the side of her breast. “When did you get that?” he wonders out loud, his thumb stroking the Q.C. tattoo she got a couple years ago. She decides now is definitely not the time to have this conversation.

“Clive, I swear, if you do that again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” she tells him, pulling him back up on top of her.

He does make it up to her, a bit later, she’s got to admit.

.

There’s a moment, though, that night. She doesn’t like to call it that (a 'moment'), because moments can lead to important things (scary things) but on the other hand, Martha Costello doesn’t know what else to call it. A moment during which she feels him push into her for first time in years and there’s nothing she can do but close her eyes, will her brain to make a memory of it – all of it - try to record the details she couldn’t always remember in the past, like his weight, his presence, the feeling of his skin against her own. She’s always hated roaring demonstrations of lust so she bites down on her bottom lip, hard, to suppress a moan, her legs wrapped tight around him. Quickly, she expects Clive to move again but he doesn’t, though, just stays there buried deep inside her, the slightest shift of his hips enough for him to brush against her G-spot. Martha tries to urge him on but one of his fingers delicately caresses her cheek instead, the moment locked in time; he nudges a loose strand of hair to the side. “Look at me,” Clive whispers, so she does, lids low and heavy with want, and need.

He waits until their gazes meet to pull away and push into her again, hard, and this time, Martha moans, loud, unable to silence it. She doesn’t know what it is, if it’s the angle he’s going for or the look in his eyes, but her legs feel like jelly, around him. She feels her orgasm build with every movement he makes, every inch of him, every breath they draw. Clive smirks, his mouth hovering close to her ear.

“That’s new,” he whispers and she almost rolls her eyes as he does it again, and Martha hears herself moan again, the feeling of him involuntarily pushing the sounds out of her mouth. “That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard,” he confesses, later, and kisses her lips like he means it.

She pushes him over the edge, in the end, a while afterwards, panting, his climax following hers. By then, Martha couldn’t care less about suppressing her moans or about her neighbours overhearing them.

.

She’s drowsing to the feeling of his breaths against her back, eyes shut, early morning, the sun already peeking past the blinds. They haven’t slept much, really, but there were other things to do, last night, and wasted opportunities to make up for. Clive’s touch is gentle on her body, barely even there, the tips of his fingers hitting spots on her skin like the soft touch of a pianist to white and black keys, a low hum escaping his lips.

“Morning,” he whispers as she opens her eyes. He bends down to kiss her, then moving to the side of her neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses down to her shoulder. Martha shivers a bit, arms folded under her pillow and hands joined under her head. In her sleep, she threw the sheet off her legs – the air is still hot, even after the storm – and she would be lying if she didn’t admit to feeling kind of exposed, right now, naked in front of him. Clive’s look dances over her body, down the line of her spine.

She’s seen the women he fucks. She’s not generally all that insecure, but, well, there are lines on her face and stretch marks on her thighs, so to speak.

His touch feels nice, though, so she can’t bring herself to stop him looking. His thumb brushes an inch of skin on her side, at the top of her ribs, the same as yesterday. She smiles to herself, waits for him to ask.

“So, when d’you get that?” he mumbles, against her skin, stretching it a bit with his fingers. The tattoo’s black, small, she remembers going back and forth a couple of times before deciding on the font, something cursive but not unreadable, or too artsy, either.

Martha smirks, glances down to look at him. Clive meets her gaze but doesn’t move, something playful in his eyes. “A while back,” she answers, evasive.

“You know that’s permanent, right?” he jokes, his fingers playing something she can’t quite identify against her skin. “What if she dies and Charles takes over? Q.C. becomes K.C. and what happens then?”

Martha shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him, but can’t keep the corners of her mouth from curving up a bit. She shifts closer to him and with a touch of her hand, tries to pull him back up towards her, but he doesn’t budge. “Well, she’s not going to die tomorrow, is she?” she says, fake annoyance tinting her voice.

“Oh, you never know, a bit of flu this winter, at that age, and poof,” he pauses for effect, his hands mimicking an explosion. “K.C.”

She’s not even really awake, she thinks, but a lazy smile already forms across her lips. “Clive,” she says, forcing him up this time. He lies on his side next to her, his mouth inches away. “Leave the Queen alone.”

He grins, sniggers, catches her lips. “Did it hurt?” he asks.

She turns around to lie on her side, too, her thigh hooking over his hip. This is nice, she thinks, almost domestic. His breath catches in his throat, though, and she’s not sure how domestic that is. “A bit,” she says.

He nods, quiet, like he’s loosely considering it, then crosses the distance between them again. When he breaks the kiss and moves to her collarbone, she feels his morning stubble tickling her skin. “Well, I like it,” he declares, and it’s not like Martha needed his approval over her two-year-old decision, but flattery is always nice to hear.

“Me too,” she mutters, pulling him back up to catch his lips. A playful battle of tongues and limbs ensues as they push each other’s buttons, she laughs when she finally wins and shoves him back down on the bed, settling on top of him. Her hand travels down between them, stopping right above his hips. “You know what else I like?” she whispers, teasing.

There’s a twinkle in his eyes when he speaks, a breath that’s coming out a bit short. “I might have an idea, yeah,” he smirks, hands settling on her hips, letting her take the lead.

.

A few minutes later, her mouth is wide open above his, his fingers teasing the inside of her thigh, erection strong against her when his phone rings, blaring shrills echoing around her bedroom. “Ignore it,” she tells him and hears a chuckle escaping his lips, his chest moving against hers. To his credit, though, he does let it go to voicemail and rolls them over to gain better access.

She feels him slip a couple of fingers inside her and moans, loudly, before she can bite her bottom lip to suppress it. There’s that cocky smile of his again, tugging at the corner of his lips again, teasing against her ear. “Again, someone’s impatient,” he says.

She doesn’t mean to, but her hips begin to rock against his hand off their own accord.

“Oh, shut up,” she says. It frankly feels too good for him to stop.

Martha hears Clive laugh, again, nodding strongly against her. “Yes, Miss,” he grins, his breath hitting her collarbone. The phone stops ringing – finally - and his mouth suddenly leaves her neck, lips dropping a trail of wet kisses down her sternum.

To tell the truth, she sort of expects him to climb back up, eventually, but to her surprise, his mouth doesn’t stop its journey down, not until she feels his tongue over her. A gasp catches in her throat, a thought briefly hitting the back of her mind about how silly she must look, right now, on her back, naked in front of him, completely at his mercy, but she can’t really bring herself to care. Okay, she thinks, she can definitely go along with this. His hold is strong on her hips, keeping her in place.

A few minutes later, his phone goes off, again. He ignores it, again. She thanks the Gods for that, again, her nails careful not to really dig into his scalp, a strangled gasp escaping her throat as he sucks, hard, on her clit, a mix of pain and pleasure flooding her brain, and oh God, she’s almost there, if he could just –

Bloody. Fucking. Phone. Martha thinks, as the shrills start again. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, her brain begs, high on endorphins, just a couple more minutes, please. But of course, the third time’s the charm, for him, and he doesn’t. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” still, she hears him swear and can’t help but groan audibly, his lips leaving her as he rolls off to the side of her bed. On the fourth ring, he finally locates his mobile in the pocket of his discarded jeans, picks it up, sliding his thumb across the screen. “Harriet, what?!” he barks into the receiver, sitting up a bit, lying on his back.

That. Fucking. Woman. Martha’s brain barely manages to articulate, rolling her eyes almost all the way to the back of her skull. It takes her breathing a few seconds to ease up, enough to hear Harriet go on a full rant at the other end of Clive’s phone.

“Jesus, Harriet, I was busy,” he snaps back. Martha has to admit that she does smile a bit at that, in spite of herself, and yes, ‘busy’ is exactly what they were.

Well, now, she thinks, looking around the room, lying naked and frustrated on tangled sheets. As she listens to Clive bicker over something regarding Chambers – it’s hard to bring herself to care, really, when all she can think about is where exactly his mouth was, moments ago - she considers her options. Finishing things off herself in the shower seems like an attractive one - after all, he didn’t have to pick up: his fault, not hers - but as she looks at him, half sat up against the headrest, she suddenly has a better idea. 

In a few, swift, revengeful motions, she moves from her side of the bed to go kneel between his legs, looking for the right angle to go about this. Suddenly, she feels his eyes on her as he tenses, knows him well enough to know that’s he’s completely understood her game. She feels him lay a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t,” he mouths, his hand covering the receiver, a warning glance in his eyes.

Martha smirks, staring back up. “Oh, I think I will,” she mouths, too. It’s the price to pay for leaving her high and, well, wet, so to speak.

She takes him in her hand, first, teasing a bit; his breath quickens above her.

“Yes, Harriet,” Clive stresses, speaking somewhat louder into his phone. “Look, can I call you b-” he starts, visibly trying to get himself out of this situation. Martha smirks – is almost glad – when she hears the other woman ignore him, continuing to speak at the other end of the line.

Martha ignores another warning look from Clive as she lowers herself closer to him, finds a comfortable enough position so that she won’t have to move again, and brings her mouth down to drop him a kiss. Then, she sets out to work.

She hasn’t done this in a while, to be fully honest, but she used to be quite good at it, once upon a time, so it comes back to her pretty fast. She decides to tease him first, mostly because she figures it’s fun to watch as he twitches and struggles to keep a straight face while speaking to Harriet, running her tongue from the base to the tip of his cock, drawing circles as she starts taking him into her mouth. She sets a nice rhythm, a smart combination of tongue, lips and hands getting him deeper and deeper every time she pulls out, taking him in until he rests just shy of her gag reflex. She glances up, her mouth still busy: his eyes are closed, breathing laboured, he’s trying very hard to ignore her but also doesn’t seem to be able to pay much attention to what Harriet is saying on the phone.

Martha stops in her movements, suddenly, catches his look, and sucks. Judging by his reaction, if this is a game, she’s winning it by a very large margin.

A loud groan escapes his lips and a curse under his breath, his free hand balled up in a fist, gripping at the sheets. Martha hears Harriet calling loudly into the receiver: “Clive?” the other woman says, and Martha has to let him out of her mouth for a second, unable to suppress a laugh.

Clive, apparently, is not really able to think straight, right now. “What, er, yeah, sorry, what were you saying?”

Martha knows as he eyes her that this is turning into some sort of a game, now, of whether or not he’ll give in and be the first to hang up. As such, she isn’t surprised when, as she takes him back into her mouth, Clive’s fingers thread into her hair, not to egg her on as one might think, but actually actively trying to pull her back up. Instead, though, Martha manages to cover his hand with hers and keep it there, nails digging into her scalp. She looks up at him, lips wrapped around him, and has the gall to suck, again; it drives him wild.

“Listen, Harriet, I’m going to fucking call you back, alright?” he mumbles into the receiver, quickly giving up as the other woman continues to shout at him, visibly undisturbed, and Clive does not even bother waiting for a response, just sort of throws the phone across the room as his way of hanging up; it narrowly misses Martha’s wall. In truth, Martha has to fight her own instincts hard to try and hold back a laugh while her mouth is still working on him but at least, she guesses, Clive’s attention is definitely focused where she wants it to be, now. She sucks, and teases and adds her hand to the mix again. “Jesus, Marth, if you don’t stop now, I’m not going to –”

Truth be told, when she started this, she sort of thought of it as payback for leaving her the way he did – to answer bloody Harriet, no less, - as something that she’d stop whenever either side of the conversation hung up, leaving them free to continue where they left off. The thing is: now, she’s kind of enjoying herself, too, watching him breathe, and groan and writhe under her. There’s something that turns her on about it, thinking that he’s like this because of her. So, Martha interrupts him, mid-sentence, lets him know just that. “Clive, I’m not going to stop now.”

She sees his eyes open wide, mouth gaping at her before she leans back down.

She’s starting to remember him, now, which makes it easier to figure out what works, what elicits a response and what doesn’t, as she works towards getting him off. Armed with that knowledge and her hands, and her lips, and her tongue, and his attention that’s certainly not leaving her, now, it really doesn’t take long. She’s got him exactly where she wants him to be when he suddenly mumbles, “Marth, I’mma –” and doesn’t have enough time to finish that thought.

He loses all control in her mouth, thrusting forward with a groan; she has a small celebration inside her head when she doesn’t gag, lets him ride out his orgasm, licks and sucks, and swallows until he’s done, lying as dead on her bed. She can’t help but laugh softly to herself seeing him like this, as she gives him one last kiss and climbs back up next to him, wiping whatever’s left of spit and cum on her mouth against the sheets.

She lays her head on his shoulder, draping an arm around him when he finally opens his eyes. “Jesus, Marth, was that real?” he mumbles suddenly and she laughs, out loud, from the bottom of her heart, it makes her whole body shake.

“Yeah, I think it was,” she says just before his lips catch hers, pulling her into a lazy, sloppy kiss. Sure, she’s still wet as fuck and still hopes to get her end of the bargain, eventually, but that can wait a bit, she decides.

As his breathing gradually goes back to normal, she notices him looking around her bedroom, at the pictures on her nightstand, her half-packed bags for Bolton in the corner, their clothes scattered on the floor. She wonders what he sees, in that mess of hers, that she doesn’t. His arm drapes around her and pulls her on her side, closer to him, settling on her hip. She hums against his chest. “I’m sorry for, er, you know –” he starts and trails off, glancing down at her. As soon as she sees the awkward, shy look on his face, though, Martha bursts out laughing.

Of course, she knows what he’s apologising for. She chuckles at him against his chest, raises an eyebrow and dares him to finish his sentence, smiling. But then, yeah, actually, it occurs to her, racking her brain for memories of their times together, that no, he’s never lost control like that, before, not in her mouth, and not without giving her any real advance notice. It’s nothing to apologise for, as far as she’s concerned (she doesn’t love it, frankly, but she gets it), yet it’s fun playing with his words a bit, and if anything, it makes her more daring, emboldened. Martha swallows heavily before she speaks, obviously teasing, playful stare fixed upon his. “Now, why would you apologise for that, Clive?” she baits and it’s his turn to laugh, then, eyeing her until he folds, smirks, stealing a kiss from her lips.

“Fuck, Martha Costello,” he whispers, against her mouth. It reminds her of that afternoon, many moons ago, of the cuffs around his wrists. “You’re wild.”

They laugh for a little while more, poking at each other’s buttons (“What you should apologise for, though,” she jokes, raising an eyebrow at him. “Is leaving me to answer your bloody phone!”) and it feels good, oddly familiar, to be here, with him. It’s been a long time since she’s felt this comfortable in his presence – now that she thinks about it, it’s probably the first time he’s ever been naked in her bed since she moved into this apartment.

To tell the truth, it’s been a while since they last were like this, the both of them.

“I had fun last night,” she admits, after a beat of silence; she’s always been softer in the mornings, Martha Costello, her voice somewhat gentler, quieter. She doesn’t only mean the sex. She thinks he knows that.

The smile on Clive’s lips slowly fades, though, and so does the flirty look in his eyes. It’s replaced by something else, something more intense, something she knows and recognises from his silk party, from when he said – “And yet, you’ve still packed your bags,” he points out, matter-of-fact, watching her reaction as he speaks: the clench in her jaw, the short sigh that escapes from her lips.

She’s lying against him, her head on her arms, folded over his chest, staring straight into his eyes, can’t escape the hurt tone in his voice. Sometimes, she remembers, many times, actually, she doesn’t know what to say to him. “I told you, I’m going to Bolton for a few days,” she counters, looking back at him.

Clive smiles, bittersweet, dropping a kiss to her forehead. “That’s not what I mean, Marth.”

And yeah, she knows it’s not. She’s packed her bags, her life, and has decided to leave. ‘I’m not coming back,’ she told him, and stood by it, did what she knows best, planned. Bolton, first (she would have regretted that, had she left that night when she made it to the airport and back to the front of his apartment building, would have regretted not having said goodbye to her mum), and maybe Bali, next, or Australia, Cape Town, Argentina; they’re all the same, to him, in the end: she’s chosen to run, given up the fight. That morning, when the time comes for him to break the bubble around them and point out the obvious (point out that maybe, she should have listened to that voice in her head, yesterday, the one who said going on a date with him on the eve of her departure wasn’t that much of a great idea), Martha expects his tone to be angry, accusatory, but it’s anything but that. Clive sounds sad, next to her, his fingers tracing loose patterns over her skin.

“You’re going to have to make a decision, there, Marth,” he tells her, quiet, and what gets her is that he’s right, she knows. The decision she made that night, as the bus came in front of her and she chose to disappear, hasn’t stood a chance since she came back for Billy, for her case, for him. Martha’s jaw clenches, uneasy, and her look attempts to focus on something else until his thumb soothes the skin of her face again, gently draws her back to him. “Promise me you’ll tell me,” Clive asks, then, his eyes locked on hers. “If you make it to Heathrow, promise me you’ll tell me.”

Martha opens her mouth to argue, say it’s not that simple, say it was kind of a spur of the moment thing, justify –

“I might try and stop you,” he tells her, honest, covering anything else that she might have wanted to say. “But ultimately you’ll be free to go. You’ve always done whatever the fuck you wanted, anyway,” he adds, a sad smile grazing his lips. “I just need to know. Want to know. I’d miss you, you know that, right?” Clive pauses, brushes a strand of hair off her face. “I’m a friend, remember?”

And just like she did when she broke up with Sean, Martha closes her eyes, then, for a long moment, can’t bring herself to look up. She buries her face in Clive’s neck, feels his blood pulsing against her ear. “Yeah,” she just says, likes the sound of it, she decides. “I promise.”

Her head lies on his shoulder for a long time, that morning, and she’s quiet, Clive’s chest rising and falling against her cheek; Martha doesn’t move, just thinks. She’s been thinking a lot, lately - about Sean, about Jerôme, Clive, Billy, her life, – but she didn’t think much last night. It felt wild and unlike her and while she doesn’t regret it, not exactly, she’s also always liked the cosiness of living in her own head – her own organized mess. It’s safe and comfortable, up there, and it allows her to stand outside overlooking the precipice without ever getting hurt. Or so she used to think.

Clive’s not stupid, and Martha knows that he knows that she’s thinking about him, right now - about them – but he also knows better than to ask. A fast learner, really, and isn’t that one of the first things they teach you in bar school: don’t ask questions that you don’t already know the answer to? Eventually, she catches herself beginning to doze off again, his touch light in her hair. She forces her eyes to open, just barely; it’s almost nine, she reads, on the clock by her desk. If she wants to be in Bolton when her mum clocks off work, regretfully, they need to get moving. Turning towards Clive, looking up, Martha sighs against his skin. “I need a shower,” she mumbles, sleepily.

“Hmhm,” he vaguely acknowledges, the movement of his chest steady under her ear. His fingers leave her hair and slowly trail down her upper arm then fall onto her waist, carrying on, down to her hipbone.

She smiles. “We need a shower,” she amends and feels him chuckle against her, hum again, raising an eyebrow at her this time.

“Hmhmhmhm.”

She pulls herself up from his chest, looks into his eyes, stops thinking again. “Come on,” she says, smiling.

He doesn’t need telling twice.  

Chapter Text

vi.

I don’t want anything more than to see your face when you open the door. You’ll make me beans on toast and a nice cup of tea and we’ll get a Chinese, and watch TV. Tomorrow, we’ll take the dog for a walk, and in the afternoon, maybe we’ll talk. I’ll be exhausted so I’ll probably sleep and we’ll get a Chinese, and watch TV.  I know it doesn’t seem so fair, but I’ll send you a postcard when I get there.

Chinese – Lily Allen

And the truth is, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Martha Costello has never been really good at making decisions.

She’s good at making professional judgment calls. They’re different. There are facts and data to lean on, and the years of experience to back it up. It’s GBH, not attempted murder. It’s assisted suicide, not murder. It’s free, not guilty.

Yet, she kept a baby because she couldn’t make the appointment. She turned Clive down because she couldn’t make time to think about it. She made it to Heathrow because she stepped in front of a crowd and couldn’t tell them who she was.

Martha’s not very good at making decisions because she likes to be sure, and there’s never a way to be sure, so she waits until the facts change, until the lines become harder, until decisions make themselves. When she broke up with Sean and a bus almost killed the both of them, he showed up on her doorstep a few days later, always seemed to make his way back into her life like a boomerang; the further she attempted to throw him away, the harder he seemed to hit back.

‘Okay, look,’ he said; her university bags were packed in the trunk of her father’s old car. She’d just argued with her mother, had made it out of the house for some fresh air. ‘I’ll come with you to Manchester.’

There was a pause in his words; he held her gaze for a moment, until she looked away.

‘If that’s what you want.’

They went for coffee. Martha paid the bill (had taken on a loan to pay for uni, might as well spend the money, she thought, and not be indebted to him), looked at Sean from where she sat, nervously biting her lip. There were tears, in his voice, in his eyes; he fiddled with a napkin and abruptly stopped, hands flat against the table, staring into her eyes.

‘I love you,’ he said, chased her gaze when she tried to look down, away from him. He sounded scared, vulnerable, alone. ‘Fuck, Mar, I –’ he breathed, took her hand in his, like something (anything) to hang onto. In the end, she didn’t say no (couldn’t say no), couldn’t break his heart. ‘Give us another chance. Please.’

Three years later, when she left for London and still couldn’t decide (their on and off relationship was mostly off, by then; she didn’t think there would be any harm – how naive), Martha just slipped away from his life while he was on holiday in Magaluf with his mates, changed her number and told herself that it wasn’t her fault, that Shoe Lane had made an offer she couldn’t refuse, that it wasn’t her decision, simply just fate.

“You’re going to have to make a decision, there, Marth,” Clive says, now, and she does what she does best: runs, stalls, hopes the problem will solve itself.

.

Initially, she’s in Bolton for a few days. See her mum, breathe the Northern air. Martha gets there late afternoon, a scarf wrapped tight around her neck despite the high temperatures, carefully positioned to hide the fleeting marks Clive’s mouth left, there, the night before. ‘Hickeys, really?’ she raised an eyebrow at him this morning, trying to assess the damage in her bathroom mirror, bending over him as he brushed his teeth in her sink. ‘I’m going to my mother’s, Clive.’ 

He simply smirked in response; Martha rolled her eyes. ‘Didn’t hear you complaining last night,’ he said in lieu of an explanation and sadly escaped the room before she had time to reach and hit the side of his arm.

When she gets to Bolton, though, there’s sense of familiarity, of belonging, in her old home, whatever the hell that means. That’s good, because she’s tired of London, of busy avenues and fake human interactions, of the Airbnb listing her new neighbours have turned the flat next to hers into. Here, she knows the kids that hang around the corner of her mum’s street. Here, she shares an understanding with them, as a matter of fact, an understanding that dates back from two years ago, when one of them got arrested on some nonsensical drug possession charge at the airport in Stansted and Martha agreed to drag herself to youth court one very early morning to run his apparently usual coppers-fitted-me-up-wasn’t-me-wasn’t-there defence and make sure he didn’t go home with more than a few hours of community service on his sentence. Martha’s reminded of it as soon as she arrives at her mum’s: in exchange, they’ve agreed to let her park her car in front of the house without trying to nick it.

“Hi, Miss!” they chant at her as she gets out of the car, opening the trunk to get her suitcase out.

The terraced house in front of them hasn’t changed much since her mum and dad moved in, when Martha was about five. The same stairs come up to the porch, the same bricks make up the wall that she used to climb on as a teenager, gripping at the drain pipe for balance, trying to get home in the middle of the night. The paint on the door is old, red, cracked; her dad used to repaint it every few years or so, she remembers, arguing that the manual work helped clear his mind. At some point, of course, his mind stopped needing clearing, and the paint began to gradually wash off. Martha doesn’t think her mum’s ever had it done since.

Glancing at the kids at the corner, Martha nods back, smiles politely and balances her handbag over her shoulder before standing in front of the trunk, about to reach for the handle of her suitcase.  One of the boys runs to her help, lifting the heavy weight in one swift motion and walking it up to her mother’s doorstep. “Ah, thanks, Jamie,” Martha smiles when he drops it up the stairs, turning around to lock the car with a beep.

Mo, she remembers, was her client. Good kid, tough circumstances. Jamie was the so-called ‘boss,’ - if such a word can be used with reference to a seventeen-year-old who orders his friends around all day, smoking weed and making half-hearted attempts at nicking cars. She can’t seem to recall the name of the third one (Liam? Cian? Something Irish).

“Reckon she’s still at Tesco,” Jamie mumbles in a very characteristic northern twang, eyeing the house, stepping away from the front door, shaking Martha out of her thoughts. D. & M. Costello, she reads, absentmindedly, on the tag under the doorbell. “You got the keys?” he asks. “I can crack it open for you, you know? If you don’t want to wait.”

Martha takes a tad too long to respond, her tired brain trying to process the information. A laugh eventually escapes her lips, shaking her head. “I’m good, thanks,” she informs him, reaching under the flowerpot on the windowsill. It occurs to her that showing him where her mum hides the spare keys might not be the smartest of things to do, but then he apparently doesn’t need them to open the door, so - she makes a mental note to tell her mum to get a better lock, next time.

Jamie shrugs, jumping the few stairs down and running back to Mo as Martha steps in.

Inside, it smells like her parents. Like the polish her mum uses on the wood of the cupboards, like the potatoes that roasted in the oven whenever her dad decided he was going to make ‘something proper,’ spending hours moving around the kitchen, ranting at Margaret Thatcher’s voice on the BBC. Her mum always hated cooking. She used to have this camera, though, one of the old ones you’d need to hold still for a good minute for the photograph to take; she’d creep on Martha and her dad on certain nights, catching stills of the both of them watching football on the telly. She’d have the pictures developed and framed, or just stuck them around the house everywhere. On the furniture in the hallway, on the wall in the living room, on the nightstand in her bedroom. Martha thinks of the photographs she has at work, wonders if maybe that’s why she keeps them. Billy smiling on her desk, her dad in the corner, and Clive - an old photo that Alan took of them as pupils tucked between credit card receipts in her wallet. Her mum has lots of pictures of them, with Dad and Martha’s own tiny, pale frame smiling between her parents. Martha was always a quiet kid, she remembers, in school, keeping to herself, her hair so blond it was almost white, skin pearly and soft, washed by the rain.

She drags her suitcase up the two flights of stairs to her old bedroom and sits on the bed; the sheets are flowery – white with pink roses on top – her mum got them when she was in school in an attempt to make the room look a bit “girlier”. It looks like she hasn’t had the heart to take Ian Curtis’ poster off the wall, though, and as Martha eyes it, it feels like he’s staring right back at her, leaning against the bricks of a building, smoking a cigarette. It makes her long for a fag.

She’s about to use the old trick with her window to climb onto the roof and satisfy her brain’s need for a rush of nicotine when she hears her mum’s voice calling her out from the hallway.

“Mar? You home?”

“Yeah!” she shouts back, sighing, putting the cigarettes away. “Up here!”

.

It’s hard to explain why the time flies. It’s hard to explain why she doesn’t leave. Her mum asks, the first night, offering beans on toast and a cup of tea: “How long will you be staying, honey?”

Martha looks around the living room, nervously crosses and uncrosses her arms. “A week or two? Don’t have much on at work at the moment.”

Her mother nods, silent. “Great,” she says, quick, faking a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Sometimes, Martha forgets that her mother knows her. Knows from a single look thrown in her direction that something is off, though she won’t ever actually acknowledge it or indulge Martha’s self-pity. Her mother figures her daughter needs an occupation, something to fill her mind, something to do. “You can help with the house, then,” she adds, hand gentle and warm against Martha’s shoulder.

The house, Martha found out about it a few weeks ago. Threw a tantrum in the wake of a phone call she got from the real estate agent, the door banging on her way back into the office. ‘My mum’s moving,’ she told Clive, eyes furious as she stood in the middle of the room, hands set on her hips.

He barely looked up, she remembers, buried deep into whatever he was reading at the time. ‘What do you mean moving?’

‘She met this guy, couple years ago,’ Martha went on, trying to suppress a roll of her eyes. ‘She’s selling the house, moving in with him. Didn’t tell me, had to wait for the fucking real estate agent to phone and ask if I was interested in buying it to find out.’

Clive finally did look up at that; his voice sounding like all of this was a completely foreign world to him. How could her mum not tell her about the house? Martha thought. How could she - ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘How do you feel about it?’

It’s funny, how naturally she burst out laughing, back then, shook her head at him. ‘How do I feel about buying property in Bolton? Not interested.’

He sighed, crossing his arms and throwing her a look. ‘No, I mean, how do you feel about her moving in with someone else?’

Well, she thought, she’s an adult, now, she’s almost thirty-nine years old (the big four-oh just around the corner), and she knows how she should feel about it: detached, cool, aware of the fact that this isn’t her life, anymore. But then, the thing is: her parents are still her parents. And, yeah, there was and is still a part of her that feels uneasy about her mum falling in love with someone else, just like another part of her feels uneasy about the house drowning under her dad’s memorabilia.

Martha got caught up in her own thoughts, then, lost her words. Clive went on, probably figured he wasn’t going to get an answer from her. ‘What’s he like anyway? The guy?’

‘Don’t know,’ she shrugged, sipping her coffee, sitting against the edge of her desk. ‘She met him online, he’s from Bury. Never met him myself.’

‘That’s a bit weird, no?’

Yes, she thought, thinking of Billy’s rows with Harriet, of Clive’s silk party. ‘Everything’s a bit weird, right now, though, isn’t it?’

Her mum’s project took a little bit of a delay, partly due to the fact that according to Silvia-the-real-estate-agent, she wanted substantially more money for the house that what would ever be on the table, but here, they are, now, ready to put out the ad. Her mother has made plans, Martha realises, a lot of plans (she’s always been good at that, hasn’t she?) and “Silvia’s coming ‘round again the Thursday after next,” she says. “Can you be here to show her in?” and: “We’re going to have to sort your room and the spare bed so that everything looks good, eh? For when the photographer comes take the pictures.”

Martha sits, listens, and at least, it’s something to do, isn’t it?

.

Over the next few weeks, apart from the particular brand of chaos that stems from the house sale, Martha’s days are quiet. Not uneventful, per se, but filled with light details that don’t bear consequences. Comfortable, slow moments that make life look like it could be forever.

On Monday, she runs into her friend Jo, two beautiful red-headed kids in tow, and schedules catch-up drinks over the weekend. ‘Are you sure you can get someone to look after them?’ Martha asks as they watch Lila and Tim play chase running up to their house. ‘I can come over to yours if that’s easier?’

‘Nah,’ Jo laughs. Tim very narrowly misses the brick wall at the end of his run; Martha’s friend squints and raises a curious eyebrow at the boy but he seems to be okay (or at least, isn’t crying loud enough that either of them can hear). ‘They have a father, I’m told, let him be of some use.’

On Wednesday, Martha waits until her mum leaves for work and buys flowers from the shop at the corner of the street, lays them down at the cemetery, her shoes wet with the morning dew. She remembers Billy, the week her father died, and the way he insisted she went home, his gaze hard and uncompromising. ‘I’m fine,’ she argued as he followed her into her room, slamming a hand on the binder she was trying to open.

‘Miss –’ he shot back with a sigh; she didn’t let him finish.

‘I need to be working, Billy,’ she said, glancing away. Clive looked up, then, met her eyes.

‘Leave it, Billy,’ he said, before looking back down at the paperwork on his desk.

.

On Thursday, she accompanies her mother to the market, picks strawberries and peaches to eat on the rare occasion where the sun hits the back garden. As it happens, autumn has rolled around quickly, around here; suddenly it’s the end of August, sixteen degrees and rainy again, as though the last month never even happened. Martha’s not complaining, prefers the chill they get over here to the stiffness of the air back in London. Mum vaguely talks about how things have been, lately, about her upcoming retirement plans and Martha lies through her teeth about work, doesn’t really know how to explain when the news about Sean don’t seem to have reached this side of Bolton, yet. It’s an easy enough fiction to narrate.

.

Clive doesn’t call. It may be a consequence of the distance that’s been imposed upon them or simply a result of the night he spent with her (perhaps the discussion they had in the morning), but he doesn’t even text, either.

It’s time to think. The more time passes, the more Martha feels that she needs to escape and leave, actually, leave Clive and Chambers and the memories attached to everything that’s happened these past few months, as if trapped in a situation where the only way up is out. When she closes her eyes, sometimes, she feels his skin against hers, still, fingertips wandering up her sides, sometimes it’s a dream and she makes herself snap out of it, remembers he put a knife in her back, too.

They’ve tried this. Tried it (them) for fifteen years, beforehand, and the fact that she feels comfortable in his arms, sometimes, doesn’t seem to solve any of their bigger issues. It’s just that, she tells herself. What she felt, what she feels, it’s the force of habit.

Still, though, when she does meet up for drinks with Jo, later over the weekend, and after about an hour’s worth of updates on her kids – the red-headed ones from before - and Bolton gossip that makes Martha feel somewhat uncomfortable (‘Have you heard he’s in jail?’ Jo says, then: ‘well, you must have, being in London and all that –’ Martha doesn’t know how, exactly, Jo isn’t aware of the extent to which she has indeed heard that he’s in jail, now – guilty, she hears, over and over again in her head – but obviously does not attempt to correct her), Jo asks, sipping on her wine: “So, how long are you staying?”

Her friend’s hair is pulled back into a ponytail, tonight, black strands falling past the base of her neck. Jo used to own this gorgeous red, back in the day, the same shade as her kids, Martha remembers, wonders why she keeps dying it black, now. “I’m not sure,” Martha says, drinks a sip of her G&T. The wine has always been kind of bad at their local, to tell the truth, but for some unknown reason, they just kind of keep going and opt for spirits instead.

She was supposed to leave tomorrow but her mum’s gone on a weekend trip with her new beau and well, at least there’s work to do around the house in the meantime, it keeps Martha’s mind busy.

“Couple of weeks, maybe,” she adds, thinking that surely, another seven days away from her responsibilities can’t hurt her more than, well, anything else that’s hurt her in the past couple of months.  

“Fab,” Jo smiles, says, clinking her empty glass against Martha’s and ordering them both another round. For some reason, it always feels to Martha that there’s more gin than tonic, in these glasses. “I mean, you must be entitled to some time off every once in a while, aren’t you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Martha doesn’t really feel like educating Jo (again) on the unspoken burdens of self-employment so until they get their drinks, she just kind of holds back a laugh and listens to her friend complain about her own employer’s lack of understanding of the struggles of working women, working mothers and, more broadly, feminism.

It’s another while before Jo stops ranting about men, in general, and her husband, in particular (“I mean, I love him to death but if you asked him where the hoover was around the house, I’m not even sure he wouldn’t confuse that with the ironing board”), another while before she turns around and asks Martha the one question she always asks once they’ve had the appropriate amounts of alcohol poured into their systems (Jo is smart, never asks before the short interlude that usually separates drink number three from drink number four). “So, Martha, dear, have you been seeing anybody interesting, lately?”

As is always the case, Martha laughs, smile enigmatic, and drinks. It’s funny, really: she’s always been okay with telling Jo all about the one-night stands and the other fleeting flings (when they talked about the Lieutenant Colonel, a couple years ago, Jo was horrified. ‘Oh. My. God.’ she said. ‘Mar, you totally should have gone for that, what is wrong with you?’) but somehow, Martha never really tells her about the important stuff. Not since Sean.

Martha lets out a short sigh, then, toying with her glass, and shakes her head no. Jo smiles in response, drinks and takes a deep breath, like someone who has a plan and cannot wait to share it. “So, look, I don’t want to force you into anything, but since you’re here for a while, I do have someone who might want to buy you a drink…”

Ah, well, then, of course, Martha laughs, rolling her eyes, signalling the waiter for another round. “God, I really don’t need you to hook me up with some random -”

Jo interrupts. It’s almost funny, how adamant she is about it, but then Martha has only ever really known her to be adamant about everything, to tell the truth. That’s one thing the two of them have always had in common. “He’s not some random bloke, alright?” her friend insists, fingertips tapping the countertop between them. “He was in school with us, a couple years older, name’s Ian Witton.” Martha briefly considers it, doesn’t really ring any bells. “Accountant. Recently divorced,” Jo points out, her gold painted plastic bracelets clinking against the counter. A group of young people are drunkenly talking (shouting) over the music a few tables down; Martha and Jo have to raise their voices, in tune with everybody else. Some guy tried to buy them drinks a while back, but Martha thinks Jo’s wedding ring scared him away. “Reasonably handsome, all his hair left,” Jo adds and Martha bursts out laughing again as the bartender slides another glass of clear liquid in her hands. She nurses it, takes a sip.

“Yeah?” she asks playfully, glancing at Jo. “What does that hide?”

“Oh, come on! I say it’s a professional bias that you think everyone’s got something to hide. He’s a nice bloke, he’s not broke, and I’ve heard he’d love to catch up with you.”

Martha shakes her head, swallowing the house’s infamous G&T. She’s on her fourth glass now so there’s a nice buzz going on in her head; it makes her feel slightly giddy. She reaches for her phone, wanting to text Clive (bad idea, the alarm bells ring in her head), but realises Jo’s eyes are still set on her so she puts it down, pretending she was just checking the time.

“Thanks for the consideration,” she tells Jo, smiling. “But I’m good.”

“Oh, come on!” her friend says, again, louder than last time. The two men at the bar a couple of stools down quickly glance at them, she lowers her voice. It’s her phrase, Martha’s noticed, she uses it a lot (oh, come on.) “You’re single, almost forty – I know, me too,” she adds, when Martha opens her mouth to protest. “Look, you don’t have to marry him, alright? Just go in for a bit of fun, will you?” she asks, low, like they’re putting together a secret ploy. “And tell me all about it, so I can live vicariously through you. It’s not like I’m getting that much action with Michael on that front –” Jo says and immediately blushes, biting her lip and rapidly glancing away as Martha laughs. Jo’s always been a bit shy, Martha smiles, remembering. “It’s not that –” Jo speaks, quick. “I mean, I love Michael, but we’ve been married ten years, now, so, you know…”

Well, Martha doesn’t, really, but pretends she does, can imagine it at least. Maybe that’s what she should have aimed for all along. A dog, kids, a husband, a house in the countryside. “Sorry,” she shakes her head at Jo, smiling. “I can’t.”

“Oh, come on!” Again. “Have a little consideration for –”

But, suddenly, Jo trails off. Looks at her. Really looks at her. Looks at her phone and back to her.

“Oh. My. God,” she says, mouthing every word, like she did when she was fifteen. She really hasn’t changed much. It’s almost refreshing, when Martha’s just been feeling like she’s aged a hundred years, lately. “You lied. You are seeing someone,” she adds and Martha’s look focuses on the wood of the counter, taking a big swig of her gin.

“No,” she says. Half-truths, again.

“Please,” Jo stresses, downing the last inch of her drink. “It’s written all over your face.”

“It’s complicated,” Martha counters, concedes, drinks.

Later, the question falls off Jo’s lips like the easiest thing in the world, as their waiter brings the bill. “Do you love him?” she asks, and Martha focuses her stare on the lines of ‘G&T- standard’ items listed on the small piece of paper in front of her, types in the pin to her debit card, not wanting to think about what that headache’s going to feel like, tomorrow.

“We’ve been best friends for the last fifteen years, of course, I love him,” she answers, walking a very, very tight rope. It’s true: she loves Clive, of course, she does.

Jo rolls her eyes, slurs a little in her speech, presses. “That wasn’t what I meant, doesn’t answer my question.”

Martha smiles. “Well, you should ask better questions, then.”

“Oh, don’t go all barrister, er, barrister-y on me,” Jo instructs, her chocolate brown eyes set on Martha’s. “Do you love him as in -” she starts, looking around, trying to think of an analogy. Her drunken brain seems to give up. “Oh, you know what I mean,” she sighs, staring at Martha.

Martha laughs, picking up her bag from over the back of her stool. The Earth spins; she might want to cab the way home.

And, of course, she knows what Jo means. ‘It’s apparently like wanting to see someone else open a Christmas present more than you want to open your own,’ Martha heard an American bloke say, once, as he sat on a bar stool next to her, deep in conversation with another girl. She had curly brown hair, Martha remembers, and eyes bright enough to light up the room. At the time, she remembers looking over at him and thinking he looked like he was quoting somebody else.

“Well, that’s not what you asked, Joanne,” Martha laughs, bumping her shoulder against her friend’s. Jo hates her full name, she knows, shakes her head, rolls her eyes. “So, that’s all you’re getting.”

“Oh, come on!” Jo shouts at Martha’s back, again, laughing, chasing after her as they exit the bar.

.

Silvia-the-real-estate-agent comes to the house a few days later, to talk over tea. Her skin is dark and her clothes much too bright for a place this far from the equator. She seems kind, though, and that’s a quality you don’t see in a lot of people, these days. “I know this is a bit odd,” the woman says, looking at the documentation she laid out on the kitchen countertop. “Considering you probably know this house better than anyone but I just, you know, wanted to give you all the information you might need. Have you talked to your mother about this?”

“I’m still not really sure, so –”

“Okay, well, here’s what I can tell you,” Silvia says, starts. Over the next half hour, they go over the house and the tiles Martha would need to get fixed on the roof and the taxes she might end up having to pay and: “Look, I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve had a couple interested last week, but they said they have to talk with the bank about their mortgage, so they’ll get back to me in a couple of weeks. I guess that’s how much time you have to decide,” Silvia tells Martha, drinking a last gulp of tea.

“Okay,” Martha nods. “Thank you.”

.

She’s not thinking of buying the house. She is thinking of buying the house. She’s not thinking of buying the house. She is thinking of buying the house.

It’s just that: the last couple of weeks have been peaceful. Martha likes peaceful, carefree. A thought reaches her brain that maybe she doesn’t need to go as far as Bali to rebuild her life from scratch, maybe she can settle down, here, and be forgotten. She’ll have a dog and a garden, open a pub with decent wine. She’ll get weekly drinks with Jo, grow old in the house she grew up in, never see the inside of a courtroom again. If you discount her mother (who gets on Martha’s nerves on a daily basis), there’s actually nothing wrong with living a quiet life, up here. Even with paying back the mortgage on her London flat, she’d still have leftover money to do a bit of work on her parents’ house, if she did decide to live there. Everything here is cheaper. From the drinks to the groceries, to the real estate. And mostly, it’s just calm, stress-free.

As she embarks onto week three of her stay in Bolton, Martha realises that she just finds it impossible to leave.

.

Chambers call, one afternoon. On her mother’s landline, which Martha thinks is a bit weird, but then she also guesses she hasn’t been particularly bothered to look at her phone lately, so. 

She recognises Bethany’s voice coming through the receiver and greets her, quickly moving from the living room to the kitchen for a bit of privacy. Martha’s mum has been incredibly invested in watching reruns of some sort of serialized singing competition on the telly and Martha gets a murderous side glare every time she dares interrupt with the most subtle of sounds. Whatshisface is currently performing a painfully off-key rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger (Sally can, indeed, really wait) that can still be heard past the living room doors so in the end, Martha steps out in the garden to take the call.

“Sorry, Bethany,” she says, finally speaking at a normal volume. “What’s up?”

“Miss, I, um,” the girl starts, pausing for words. She sounds nervous; Martha frowns. “Mr Reader said, er, that you wouldn’t be back – at least not for a while, and um, the new tenants – he, um - I was asked to, um, clear your desk –”

Bethany, Martha thinks, clearly expects a reaction, a word, a shout, in regards to this. There’s a short pause, in her hesitant speech, a pause longer than the other pauses, as though she sort of assumes Martha will suddenly get enraged, drive down two hundred miles and storm back into Chambers, demanding an explanation. It’s funny really, because in Martha’s brain, it was just kind of expected. She did tell Clive that she wouldn’t come back, after all, so why would Chambers not also choose to move on? It’s logical, it makes sense, and she’s got her own separate life, now, and the house that she might buy and the pub that she might open, and frankly, the fact that they’re clearing her desk really shouldn’t tear Martha’s heart apart the way it does, now.

She stays silent, though, doesn’t know what she could say, either way, and waits for Bethany to go on. “Anyway, er, Miss, there’s this, um, plant – I think it’s a bamboo actually – it’s looking pretty dead, to be honest but I just didn’t know –” the girl rambles on, stops; Martha laughs.

“Yeah, you can throw that out,” she says, smiling sympathetically into the phone – a client gave it to her once, she recalls, kept adding water to it and the poor thing just kept dying away.

Bethany enquires about a couple more items that Martha frankly didn’t even remember she still owned; it gets less awkward, after a while. Her tea’s gone cold from the wind in the garden that keeps sending shivers down her spine.

“Just out of curiosity,” Martha asks, eventually. “How many boxes do you have?”

Her hand runs over the back of her neck as she listens to the girl speak. “Um, just a couple boxes, Miss. Mister Reader’s offered to keep them, until you, um, decide what to do.”

Martha appreciates the tactfulness with which Bethany dances around the subject (the girl’s always been smart, after all), but still tries not to think too much about what it might mean. Fifteen years of her life coming down to a couple of boxes Clive promises to safe keep until she gets back – if she ever comes back, her brain amends - and a dead plant.

“Is Mr Reader in?” Martha asks, biting her lip, missing the sound of his voice against her ear. It’s selfish, really, she shouldn’t call him until she’s made a proper decision, but -

“Yes, Miss, but I think he’s in a meeting; do you want me to go and –”

“No,” Martha interrupts, smiling and shaking her head. “That’s all right, don’t worry,” she adds. “Thank you, Bethany.”

.

She admits to her mum that she’s going to stay a little while longer over dinner the next day, Chinese takeaway steaming from the flower-patterned dish coming straight out of the microwave. Martha gauges her reaction, the wood of the dinner table standing between them. She used to walk out of here pretty often, Martha remembers, when she was young and angry, slammed the door at her father, furious about her grades.

“You don’t look surprised,” Martha observes, pushing food around her plate. Her mother cuts a bit of meat with her knife and chews, nodding to herself.

“You never show up here without a reason, Mar, and it’s not Christmas for another six months.” Her mother says, matter-of-fact, like it is a non-event, or maybe something she expected to happen way before it did. It makes Martha sad, in a way, seeing how remote from home her life now is. “I’d just like to know what this is about, this time, because with the wine you’ve been drinking, I can already tell you’re not pregnant.”

Her mum’s always known how to poke the most tender spots – that’s where Martha gets that particular skill from, after all – but it’s never nice to be on the receiving end of the stick. Martha stays silent for a bit, downs her drink. “No, I’m not,” she agrees.

.

It’s an extra few days before she eventually makes it to Manchester, had to stay at the house while they had a couple more viewings – nothing conclusive and Silvia still hasn’t heard from the other potential buyers but when Martha does make it to the city, she’s surprised by how well she still knows the roads and by how little things have changed, overall. She knocks on an office door, lets herself in when she hears the voice on the other side say: “Come in.” Everything in the space is exactly as she remembers it, all wood and old furniture, and random memorabilia crammed into a room the size of a shoebox, her eyes never knowing where to look. Thomas Evershed stands up as soon as he spots her, beams and walks across towards her.

“Martha Costello, here in Manchester!” he says, looking like he can’t quite believe his eyes. “And she’s even learnt to knock on doors!” he jokes, extending a friendly hand to shake hers. They’ve caught up a handful of times over the years, at the odd crim conference and bar gatherings, but it’s been a while since Martha’s last seen her old professor. A couple of years, maybe three, she remembers he sent her a congratulating note when she got silk.

“I’m visiting family,” she simplifies, smiling back. He hasn’t changed much, really, tall, older and still somewhat charming. His trademark long, grey hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail behind his head; Martha’s always wondered if he already had it before she met him, during his days at the bar, and how that blended in with the rigorous dress code.

She eyes him as he releases her hand and takes a step back, notices the coat on his shoulders, bag packed. “Oh, you were leaving, I’m sorry –” she starts but sees him wave a dismissive hand at her, moving around his office to gather his belongings.

“Oh, don’t be stupid, I was but I’m not anymore. Let’s get out of here and get coffee and a snack, though, I’m starving.”

They head to a Starbucks a couple of streets down (a grande Americano for her, two sugars; a chocolate muffin and a venti soy mocha – two shots, only – for him, with extra peppermint on top) and fall into an easy, comfortable conversation as they wait for their drinks. He offers her a bit of the muffin; she declines.

“I was sorry to hear about Billy,” he says as they settle down, holding his coffee close to his lips. She’s careful to take the lid off hers before taking a sip, recalling that one time when she got what felt like third degree burns on her tongue for a good week. “I was at the wake, thought I’d see you.”

“I was late,” she explains. A true affirmation, technically, though the causation link she’s suggesting between those two elements isn’t. She was late, and also didn’t even go in. 

“I heard you left Shoe Lane,” Evershed adds, eyeing her reaction across the table. Martha holds his gaze.

“News travels fast,” she observes, taking a sip.

“Ah, the bar’s grapevine does wonders.”

The truth is: it kind of is why she came to him, and maybe he knows that, already. It takes her a good half hour to get through everything: Sean, Billy, her application to be Head of Chambers, the shift in Shoe Lane’s work; but it feels good to tell someone else about it. Someone who doesn’t know, wasn’t there, but still understands her world, what it means to hold this kind of job, to say your work is your life like that’s not necessarily a bad thing. She’s never seen him as a mentor, not really – he never taught her anything apart from bits of property law that she never managed to either understand or genuinely care about – but he did see her, once upon a time, in a classroom filled with a hundred other students and believed in her. The last time she saw him in London, he was the first to tell her to apply for silk.

‘I’m too young,’ she told him, laughing, over drinks somewhere that wasn’t just around the corner.

‘So, what? Try it this time around. If it doesn’t work, you’ll try again later.’

‘I –’

“So, you’re here for guidance,” he points out, now, interrupts the recollection. She’s tempted to deny it, tell him that it’s more complicated than that, that she needed to talk to a neutral party but –

“I suppose,” Martha says, after a beat. “Yes. I mean, you’ve been there before: left the bar, went on to do something else. How did that happen?”

When he speaks, Evershed talks about things she recognises, understands, but hasn’t quite ever felt, yet. He talks about putting in too many hours into something he didn’t really care about anymore, about defending client after client and feeling stuck getting people out of jail only for them to get caught again for the same shit just months later. Strangely, Martha finds herself disagreeing with him. Wanting to say that they really are, helping people. That she really did care about her clients, no matter how screwed up they were, that she feels angrier at how pointless the system is than at her clients for committing second offences. That, and the fact that she’s never really been convinced that putting ninety per cent of the people who are currently in jail in jail has ever provided any positive change in society.

“You should speak to my students,” Evershed says, smiling, gauging her reaction. Martha raises an eyebrow, wonders what she could possibly have to say to a bunch of twenty-year olds taking law at university. She’s always liked having a pupil, has always known that much, but that’s not because she thinks she has some sort of invaluable, original wisdom to pass on. It’s just that she selfishly likes their enthusiasm and showing them around her world. She’s never been that interested in the law as a scientific subject, has never seen herself buried in hundreds of years’ worth of precedent to review. She likes the law as a dirty brick wall to break apart. “Come on,” he presses, though, smiling at her. “I’m teaching a summer class on the Theory of Court Practice, you should come.”

“They show up over the summer to learn about the theory of court practice?” Martha laughs, shaking her head.

Evershed chuckles at her. “As strange as it may seem, they do. They’re either very dedicated or really need the pass grade, I don’t know.”

Martha laughs with him, catches herself nodding. “I’ll think about it.”

.

And, three days later, fifteen minutes in and she already knows what he did, there. She gets it now, looking at the students, answering their questions about work and life, and her opinions on the criminal justice system, and what innocent until proven guilty really means, in the grand scheme of things. He did the same thing fifteen years ago, saw her speak unprepared, countering his points in a classroom – now, in a Starbucks - and saw something that she didn’t.

The questions? They’re not all passionate inquiries about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles. One of the kids asks about the money and the big criminal cases that attract the spotlights. Another one asks about how to get tenancy at Shoe Lane and gets laughs from the entire class. Work-life balance at the bar is also a big one and: “I’d love to tell you it’s getting somewhere,” she tells the girl in question – it’s always girls, of course, asking these things, and that makes Martha angry. “I do wish it was, believe me. But then I really don’t know many women in silk, right now, who aren’t married to their jobs.”

“And you never wanted anything else?” The kid follows up. Martha doesn’t know her name - only knows her by the fact that she’s wearing a very bright, orange summer dress with electric blue straps draping her shoulders - but really wishes she did.

“No,” she says, genuinely, honestly, because she didn’t. Never dreamed of it, the big white weddings and the kids around her ankles, school choirs and Christmas parties, a house in the suburbs. Anything else got thrown upon her lap, once, and then taken away, but Martha sees it as something that happened rather than as something she ever wished to happen. She was happy. With work, with Shoe Lane – family. 

So, no, they’re not all passionate questions about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles, but some of them are. They ask about the racial make-up of the jail population, and about whether she thinks prison sentences are effective, and when she mentions that a) she doesn’t prosecute and b) doesn’t do rape, she gets a lot of questions about that, as well. And, sure, she gets the usual ‘how can you defend them?’ but it comes from a place of interest and need for advice rather than from a place of disgust. Martha finds herself smiling, most of the time, as she speaks.

In the end, she gets a round of applause she doesn’t really think she deserves, exchanges a bit of small talk with Evershed as she watches the students pack their stuff, some of them lingering, she knows, probably to ask her more questions they didn’t want to ask in front of everybody else. Martha stays an extra half hour and tries to answer all of them to the best of her ability.

So, yeah, she smiles to herself as she talks to a blue-haired girl who’s worried about her background and about her grades, and about her nerves not being strong enough for crim, when Martha asked Evershed for guidance, a couple days ago, and he wasn’t particularly forthcoming, she thought she shouldn’t have asked, felt stupid for asking, for thinking that a single person she hadn’t seen in years was ever going to hand her the solution to all her problems. Yet, now, she knows what he’s done, there.

The students don’t all ask passionate questions about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles because they’re not all passionate about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles.

They’re not. But she is. Still is. Feels the passion rising within her every time she talks about her work and in a single afternoon, Evershed’s just shown Martha what she’s been refusing to see since the night after Sean’s trial: she still cares. Really, truly cares 

Frankly, she’s not quite sure what to do with that, yet.

.  

Soon enough, another weekend rolls around and that Sunday, Roy sits with Martha and her mum at lunch. “It’s nice for you to meet him, isn’t it?” her mother whispers into Martha’s ear as the boyfriend navigates expertly between different pieces of furniture to set the chicken dish her mum’s spent hours working on, on the table. Martha’s been careful enough to take sufficient notice of his face, at this stage, that she thinks she’d be able to recognize him if necessary, which, by all standards, is already an improvement. He’s tall, bald, casually touches her mother’s shoulder.

“So, Martha, how long are you staying here in Bolton?” he asks with a polite smile, once everyone’s settled down and started eating. “It must be one of the nice things about being self-employed, isn’t it? Being able to take time off whenever you please?”

And, look, it’s not that Martha doesn’t like him, per se. It’s just that he’s the kind of person who thinks that longer prison sentences make people less likely to reiterate their offenses (jails having turned into five-star hotels to ‘these kids’ who just don’t want to go ahead and find ‘real’ work – he thinks the army would do them some good) and that the death penalty must have surely deterred some of those psychopaths from acting on their impulses, back then, doesn’t she think?

It’s funny, really, because they’re sitting at the very table where Martha and her parents used to have their Sunday family lunches, and Martha can’t count the number of times when she stormed off over rows about her grades, her friends, and politics. It’s not that her family were ever conservatives, of course, but she’s just always been the most passionate speaker in the room. Martha’s not fifteen, anymore, so she doesn’t storm off on bloody Roy just yet, simply chooses to respectfully disagree, and manages to only get a tiny bit snappy when he decides to cut her off mid-sentence for the third time in a row. They’re both respectful of each other but Martha can’t say she doesn’t notice the tense smile on her mother’s face when she announces dessert, visibly relieved to be able to change the subject. Mum looks happier when she’s around him, though, Martha notices.

Later, she hears his car pull out of the driveway and kills her cigarette against the brick wall before her mum makes it back up the stairs and into Martha’s old bedroom, stepping out through the window onto the roof. She’s never quite understood why, exactly, but the people who built this house up put it together in a way that made the neighbour’s flat roof accessible from Martha’s window on the top floor, if only you were brave enough to step over the small gap in between. She used to play up here, sometimes, trying to stay out as long as she possibly could, fighting off the evening chill. Then, she would have Sean over as well, until the passionate snogging sessions turned into more dramatic arguing ones and Martha had to put an end to it. Luckily for them, Mr and Mrs Clifford who lived next door were both too old and too deaf to ever hear anything. Martha’s mum sits down next to her, the warmth of her body familiar by her side.

“You didn’t have to get argumentative with him,” she states, setting the tone, her blue eyes focused on her daughter’s. When she was younger, Martha remembers, her mum had this really long, soft, straight blonde hair that went down to her lower back, flowed graciously over her shoulders. She never quite knew what to do with Martha’s messy curls. After Dad passed away, Mum cut her hair short, though, and that was that, really.

“I wasn’t being argumentative, I was –”

Her mother cuts Martha off with a laugh, shaking her head like she always did whenever she’d catch her sneaking back into the house in the middle of the night. ‘We were studying,’ Martha would say – we: Sean and her. Always Sean. Her mum would laugh and shake her head at her, standing in the doorway in the dark.

‘You’ve got your father’s brains,’ she’d say, extending her hand and confiscating Martha’s keys. ‘But I’m not stupid, either.’

“It’s funny,” her mum says, now, after a beat, fingers joining on top of her knees. Her nails are long and painted with a French manicure in immaculate shades of pink and white, in a way that Martha has never been able to maintain hers. “I always wonder if you’d have gone into this job if it weren’t for Dad and the way he was with you,” she stops, glancing at Martha. “He was always pushing, and pushing, and pushing every time you two had a conversation. Loved playing devil’s advocate to everything you said like it was a game I could never understand between the both of you.”

Yeah, Martha thinks, nodding. It was. She knew it at the time, even through her angry, angst-filled teenage years. Countless times, she’d spend weeks refusing to utter a single word to her mother, but never, ever stopped talking to him. They’d have endless, pointless arguments over anything and everything, over football line ups and whether or not her room needed tidying, and after her mum would forcibly separate them calling bedtime, he’d slip back in with her to continue the conversation where they’d left it off, talking and debating until the wee hours of the morning. When the cells in his brain turned into jelly and his stare went blank, they moved him to the guest room on the ground floor, because they could lock the door from the outside and make sure he wouldn’t go wandering off in the middle night. Martha would sneak down to him and sit by the side of his bed, holding his hand. He’d smile and say: ‘Mar.’

“He loved you so much,” her mum adds, now, quietly, a cold gust of wind sending goose bumps to her shoulders.

Martha nods, smiles as she feels her mum’s hand against her leg. “I know.”

Shutting her eyes for a bit, feeling the breeze against her skin, Martha listens to the distant hum of the cars in the background, the loud sounds of laughter rising out of the teenagers living on the ground floor next door, their short skirts and hoop earrings hidden under the trees of their backyard. She likes it here, likes Bolton. It’s easy, familiar; she likes Jamie, and Mo, and the old ladies who’ve lived here eighty years and used to work at the mills, their tired fingers waving at her as they pass each other in the street. Martha likes it like a foreign place, she thinks, like that old seaside house you rent out every summer, build a lifetime’s worth of sweet childhood memories in, but that ages without you for another fifty-one weeks of the year.  

“Silvia called,” her mum says, eventually. Martha looks up. “The couple we talked about? They got their mortgage. We’re signing at the end of the month.”

When her mum had told her about them, a few days back, she sounded excited, thrilled, happy; Martha pretended she didn’t already know. She guesses that’s what Silvia had wanted to talk about, then: Martha missed a few calls, days ago, didn’t bother returning them.

Her mum is silent for long while, watching her. “What are you doing here, Martha?” she finally asks, her head tilting to face her daughter’s.

Martha thinks about it - thinks about it for a long moment, like she always does. “I quit work,” she finally admits, looking down at her hands. Should have said it sooner, maybe, just couldn’t find the words. She looks at her mother now, and: “Again,” Martha observes, sighing after she stays silent for a bit. “You don’t look surprised.”

A smile moves the corner of her mum’s lips. “Again, you never come here without a reason.”

Martha’s mouth twists uncomfortably, fingers anxiously tapping the fabric of her jeans. She’d waited twelve weeks, for fuck’s sake, had waited until they told her it was safe. It took her another two weeks to tell her mother she’d lost it, didn’t quite know what the words were.

“What happened?” her mum asks, now, about work, and it feels different and similar at the same time.

“It all got to be a bit too much.”

“Was it about Sean?”

Martha looks up quickly, frowns, startled, thought her mum didn’t –

“I’m not stupid,” she adds, with a smile. “I read the papers, Martha.”

Instinctively, Martha feels the need to defend herself, defend him. “I couldn’t not help, Mum. He’s innocent, I couldn’t just leave him –”

“Honey, that boy –”

Martha sighs, thinks: don’t. Shakes her head and refuses to look into her mother’s eyes, closes the discussion, fiddles with her fingers, wishes she could light a cigarette. “It wasn’t just him, anyway. It was – I lost someone, in Chambers. Cancer. He mattered to me,” she pauses, bites her lip. “It changed a lot of things. At work and outside.”

And the truth is: there are many things that Martha Costello doesn’t tell her mother. Every time she goes home, for instance, she constantly chews mint gums and puts on perfume so that her mother doesn’t find out about the smoking, doesn’t tell her about the cases she loses or the death threats she gets from angry clients because she doesn’t want her to get worried. Everything’s fine, Martha always says, just like she did, again, a few weeks ago, when she called home from her bedroom while Clive watched the telly in the living, after he brought her home and mended her wounds and promised that the assault really wasn’t her fault. Under the shower, Martha set the water so hot it almost burnt her skin, trying to get rid of the nightmares that clogged her brain. ‘I just wanted to see how you were, actually,’ she told her mum on the phone, faking a smile, quickly wiping tears off her cheeks. What happened in that bar that night following their argument is a secret that’ll die with Clive, Martha thinks.

“I’m sorry,” her mum says, now, nodding. There’s empathy in her voice and after all, Martha guesses, she of all people would know what loss means. “You know, I never asked because it didn’t feel like I should, after you lost it, but was he, er, is that why he mattered to you, because –”

Of course, Martha bursts out laughing at that, something real and loud, a strand of hair falling over her face. “Billy? God, no,” she says and a sigh of relief escapes her mother’s lips. It’s funny actually, her mum’s the second person who’s insinuated she was sleeping with Billy since he died; Martha wonders what that says about human nature’s belief in platonic friendships. “No, no, he was just – a very close friend. Someone I cared about,” she quickly adds, clarifying.

“Okay,” her mum says, nodding. She waits a bit, until Martha looks up, until the appropriate amount of time has passed before it becomes acceptable to push again. “That’s sad, darling, but it doesn’t tell us what you’re going to do about your life, now, does it?”

I don’t fucking know, Mum, Martha wants to say, really, looking down at her knees. “I love the law,” she tells her, instead, but: “I feel like I’ve burnt a lot of bridges, I can’t go back,” she sighs. “I don’t even want to.”

Her mum shrugs, like the most natural thing in the world. “So?” she says. “You’ll go back to London, find somewhere else.”

Martha sighs, shakes her head. Hears Billy again as he said: ‘Shoe lane is -.’ “It’s not that simple,” Martha starts, thinks. “The bar’s all about loyalty and Shoe Lane’s always been family.”

She only realises what she said a bit too late, when she glances at her mum and sees the hurt look on her face. Martha opens her mouth to amend her words, say she didn’t mean it like that, but - “There’s work family and then there’s real family, Martha,” her mother says, tone curt and abrupt. “You know, again, I never asked but, you’ve never thought of, er, trying again, after – with whoever it was, I mean -”

Martha raises an eyebrow at her mum’s uncomfortable sigh, smiles. If there’s one thing she’s really never thought about, actually, it’s that. “No,” she says shaking her head. When her mum looks surprised, she explains: “It’s complicated.”

“Everything always is with you, isn’t it?”

A quiet sigh escapes Martha’s lips as she looks away and down to the garden of their house, the Hortensia her mum planted in bushes in the back. Martha misses home, sometimes, misses her Dad, and the novelty of clear blue skies and climbing trees. She thinks of Jo, though, and Jamie, and even Evershed, how different their lives are from hers. Martha doesn’t like the things that happened in her life, recently, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t like her life, generally.

She could say it. Could say: I want to buy the house, I want to move back here, but for some reason, just like she couldn’t ask Billy to book another appointment to terminate her pregnancy, or just like she couldn’t say the words back to Clive at his silk party, the decision feels already made, there, as a result of her inability to take action. Martha used to think of it as the easy way out, saw waiting for time to pass and make the hard decisions on her behalf as a weakness, but maybe that’s not what it is, really, maybe there’s a different kind of power in simply accepting to stand by.

“You need to go home, Martha,” her mother says. “You know that, right?” and when Martha hears “home,” she hears “London” and it’s funny, really, how clearly and instinctively she seems to know that, where her heart is. Martha knows why her mum is moving, deep down, knows it isn’t as much about Roy as it is about this place not really being entirely hers either, anymore. “I mean, I love it when you’re here,” her mother says, smiles. “And with the move and everything, I really hope you stay until Sunday but – this isn’t your life. It’s not what you want, what you’ve always wanted. Whatever you do, I don’t want you to come back. We’ve both already left this behind.”

Martha’s eyes shut at that, for a second. She guesses her mum’s right, doesn’t quite know what she wants, anymore, but being here is not it. Martha’s always been content, here, and has always wanted more than that. For some reason, complicated has always drawn her to the moon and back.

When her mum heads back inside after the landline goes off and she runs to catch it (landline equals telemarketer in Martha’s mind so she rarely ever answers, but supposes you never really know), Martha takes her phone in her hand, fingers hovering over the glass screen.

Hey, she writes, text filling out the blank space below the older blue and grey bubbles they’ve exchanged. They date back from over three weeks ago, feel like a million years ago, really. I’ll be home Sunday.

It’s a good five minutes after she hits send when her phone chirps again. She holds her breath sliding the message open: it’s a face, a yellow face with a smile and eyes in the shape of circumflex accents, cheeks red. It’s that, and okay, Clive says.

Chapter Text

vii.

You give me that look that’s like laughing with liquid in your mouth, like you’re choosing between choking and spitting it all out, like you’re trying to fight gravity on a planet that insists that love is like falling, and falling is like this.

Falling Is Like This - Ani DiFranco

On Thursday nights, the kids that hang about the street by her mum’s house throw beer bottles to the ground. They shatter against the concrete, a distant sound that slips past the neighbourhood’s windows, shakes Martha out of her nightmares.

.

She hates them, the nightmares. There’s Clive and there’s Harriet, and Billy, and Sean, and her parents, and nothing ever makes sense. She’s never been good at remembering them, wakes up in cold sweat with her heart hammering against her chest and seldom understands why. Nothing in that world is ever as she remembers it to be.

The memories, she likes them better. They’re haunting, keep her awake; she lays in her childhood bedroom staring up at the ceiling but at least, they’re real. Martha’s in bed, looking at her mobile when the numbers change to midnight, the date moving forward in front of her eyes. She remembers Billy, last year, and all the years before, the way she’d come into Chambers to find flowers on her desk, lilies and gerberas in orange and red tones like a ritual, a quick note in his messy handwriting. 

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she’d tell him, walk into the clerks’ room. It would always be early, quiet, still.

‘The love that I feel for you, Miss,’ he’d start, smile; she’d cross the distance to pull him into a tight hug, hear him whisper words in her ear. ‘It grows every minute of every year –’

It’s Friday morning, the 5^th of September, when the clock hits midnight and make a wish, Martha thinks.

It’s on days like this that she’ll always miss him.

.

If mornings were Billy’s, nights were always more of Clive’s area of expertise. He even had a name for it, used to call it his back to school project; Martha would roll her eyes at him but sometimes, he’d succeed and charm her into dancing with him – or for him, she’s not quite sure – taking her hand in his.

She’d like to say that this year is no different, but this year is so different. This year is a posh restaurant and romantic candles, and white tablecloths, very expensive wine. It fits her dress, his suit. There are multiple kinds of forks and knives by the side of her plate – it’s not that she doesn’t know what’s the use of each, per se, it’s more that it’s the kind of thing she has to remember rather than wait to naturally come to her. They’re in Manchester – her city, of sorts – and yet, it feels more like his comfort zone than hers. On the one hand, she likes this; it feels elaborate, official, but on the other, well –

“You look nervous,” he says, smiling, clinking his wine glass against hers. Clive surprised her, today. It was supposed to be her last couple of days in Bolton, August crossing into September (Summer into Autumn) and she was supposed to drive back to London on Sunday evening. Instead, Clive came to get her from her mum’s place, hooted the horn of his car bloody havoc in front of her house, a scene that will most likely feed the neighbourhood’s gossip for years to come. It’s a bit odd, talking to him now when they haven’t really talked in almost four weeks; it makes her remember how much she’s missed him.

Martha takes a sip – the wine’s good, she’ll give him that - lies. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” Clive smirks, holds her gaze. “Like when you’re about to stand up defending a client who looks very, very guilty.”

Martha’s fingers hover, toying with her glass. “All my clients look guilty,” she pauses. “That’s why they’re on trial.”

“Do I look guilty to you?”

Yeah, she thinks, or maybe I am. On nights like this, back in the day, he’d take her to the pub and get her drunk on red wine and laughter, sometimes buying her chips on the way home. She kissed him, once, only meant for it to be a quick peck on his lips to shut him up. Instead, she felt herself responding to his touch, her body close to his at the back of the pub, shielded from casual onlookers. Her phone went off in her pocket, loud shrills of that one Blackberry ringtone; the mobiles that could barely take any pictures.

‘This is a bad idea,’ he said, parting, but didn’t move.

Martha pressed a key and her phone began vibrating instead; she felt it against her leg. ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

.

Clive drinks, now; she watches as the liquid travels down his throat, his neck slightly moving as he swallows. “If I was guilty of something, I’d kill to see Martha Costello fight my corner,” he says, lets out a short breath. “Not literally, I mean –”

“Can we please not go there?”

She speaks fast, without thinking, and it lasts a millisecond but there’s a flash of hurt clouding his eyes. He’s trying to give her space. This wasn’t what she meant, she wants to explain, it’s just that –

She was seventeen the last time someone she cared about made a similar joke. His arm was around her shoulder and the covers were drawn over them to avoid having to turn on the heat (they were in his room, at home, his mum’s council estate flat; there wasn’t any money to pay for, well, anything, really). The bed was small; they had to squeeze in – proper grown-ups, now - his skin against hers. ‘So, law, uh?’ he said, smiled, close to her face.

Martha nodded, somewhat shyly, didn’t know for sure, didn’t know if she’d get in, didn’t think –

‘So, you want to be a lawyer?’

She laughed, her hand in his hair. ‘Maybe?’ she admitted, glanced away. ‘I don’t know, I mean –’

Sean’s mouth found hers; he tasted like beer and the crisps they’d had for lunch. ‘Nah, I like it,’ he said against her lips, pulling her on top of him. She beamed at him, like people in love in the movies. ‘You can defend me.’

.

Martha doesn’t say that, now, of course, doesn’t think bringing that up with Clive will get either of them anywhere. “I just feel like with the great food and fancy restaurant, you’re expecting us to talk,” she concedes, instead, glancing away again. “Me to give you answers I don’t have.”

Her hand rests on the table and she feels his fingers dance over hers until he takes them back, just long enough to make the blood rush in her throat. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“No?”

It’s funny, really, because he hasn’t said it, yet. She knows why he’s here – they both know why he’s here (because he’s a good person and he never forgets) - but when she went down to meet him on the street in front of her mum’s house this afternoon, he said he was ‘passing,’ and had a conference to attend on ‘the notion of substance in tax law’ in Manchester, tomorrow at 8am. She’s not sure if such a thing really exists or if he just made it up but she’s got to admit she laughed, just a bit. Clive leans in, now, whispers: “I’m hoping for a similar conclusion to both first and second dates.”

“Oh,” Martha laughs, bites her lip. “Is this a second date?”

Clive looks around him. The restaurant is showy, high-end, it’s almost exactly what she had in mind when she mocked the idea of them going on a date, last time around. “I don’t know, what do you think?”

Martha pretends to consider it, frowns, pouting. “See?” she says, fake hesitation in her voice. “I’m not sure I really like the guy.”

Clive laughs, holds her gaze; she barely dares to move. “You forget I can tell when you’re lying, Martha Costello,” he says, finally breaking eye contact, stealing a sip of his wine.

She grins behind the rim of her glass, raising an eyebrow at him. “Can you?”

.

(The truth is: she does, though. Like him, that is. She’s liked him for a while, really, ever since they were twenty-two and he laughed at her as she precariously stood on a chair trying to grab one of the books on the top shelf, refusing to ask him for help.

Martha likes him, but also, in the past few months, she hasn’t liked him all that much. It’s what she told her mum, really. It’s complicated.)

.

Over dinner, over time, Martha relaxes. Doesn’t know if it’s the wine or Clive’s company but the vibe changes, little by little; it reminds her more and more of their first date, the one they had before she ran up to Bolton, reminds her of the fact that they don’t always have to be so goddamn serious all the time.

She asks their waitress for a glass of water and he teases her about her accent (which he claims has gotten stronger over the last few weeks she spent here). “Thank God you’re coming home Sunday,” he says, as his foot accidentally brushes against her leg under their table for the third time. “Another week of this and I wouldn’t be able to understand you at all. I swear, it’s even worse than when you’re very, very drunk,” he laughs, sitting back in his chair when she shifts out of reach.

Martha doesn’t want to laugh at all his jokes, not really, but still, somehow, she does, mostly because to be fully honest, she knows it’s kind of true. “That’s what I really sound like, Clive,” she tells him and he throws her a curious look, pouring the both of them more wine. They’ve had their starters, now, are waiting for the mains and she’s finally beginning to fully breathe.

“What do you mean?” he asks, setting the bottle back on the table.

Martha smiles, explains. The story is one of when she was twenty-two and moved to London, when people told her that she’d be taken more seriously if she got rid of it, as though she was ever going to fit in. ‘Posh it up a bit,’ Tom Evershed had advised in the few days leading up to her interview and it sort of became second nature after a while, slowing down the pace of her speech. The thing is, though – the thing that Clive has of course repeatedly pointed out to her before - is that it tends to come back, whenever she stays at home a bit too long or drinks a bit too much. She remembers one Christmas party at Shoe Lane – they were younger, a couple of years at the bar at most - she drunkenly ranted at him about a case she was working on and he just looked at her and teased: ‘Can you repeat that, please?’

She thought she was going to punch him in the face.

Clive looks at Martha as she speaks, now, their waitress looming into her field of vision. More food is served – salmon and potatoes for her, some sort of vegetable lasagne she’s really not interested in for him - and they’re silent for a minute until the girl goes away to tend to another table.

“I didn’t know that,” Clive says, catching Martha’s look.

Martha laughs, cuts into her salmon and tries a bit – okay, the food is very good, she thinks, she’ll also give him that. “Didn’t know I wanted to punch you in the face? You’d think that was the reason you said that in the first place –”

 “Nah,” he smirks, shakes his head, cuts into his own dish. “That you tried to, er, posh yourself up, let’s say.”

Ah, that, Martha thinks. She smiles, holds his gaze. “You don’t know everything about me, Clive Reader.” Her voice is lower than usual; she throws him an enigmatic look, biting her lip for effect.

His eyes stay fixed on her for as long as he possibly can before he finally blinks, quickly glances away. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over the effect she seems to have on him. “Fuck, Marth,” he swears, under his breath.

.

Yes, she had agreed, back when their mobiles couldn’t take pictures, it was a bad idea, so she walked back into Chambers, alone. Clive followed (of course), cornered her into having a conversation while she collected her stuff from their room. She’d only had one glass, at the pub, and at that point she felt completely sober, decided right there and then that she fucking hated his guts. ‘You can’t just do that and leave, Marth,’ he argued then, voice already raised. It was late, Chambers long deserted.

‘Oh yeah? You think?’

They shouted. She only vaguely remembers what was said; he called her a hypocrite and she called him a coward, and they were at each other’s throats until his lips found hers and he pushed her against the door, back slamming against the wood; she had bruises on her arms, a couple days later. He pulled away for a second, still, look charged with need and anger, gave her an opportunity to leave and go home, Martha remembers, but she failed to take it. Pulled him back towards her instead, made his lips bleed with everything that she couldn’t tell him.

They were rough, the both of them. Taking and giving at equal rates, had the best sex they’d ever had, the best sex she’d ever had, to tell the truth. She came in his arms and he followed right after; her legs shook when he tried to lower her down to her feet, a while later. And just like that, though, it was over, and she became a cheat and a liar, stone-cold sober.

‘Marth,’ he said. His voice was kind, devoid of the anger that it had held before; she buried her face in his neck, let him hold her, didn’t say a thing. ‘Marth, we can talk about it.’

Jerôme said the same thing, the following morning, when he found her in tears on the sofa of their living room. I cheated on you with my best friend and it felt a lot more like love than a one-night-stand, and you want to talk about it? she remembers thinking to herself, out of anger and exhaustion, looking at her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about it.

Instead, that night, she told Clive to go home. ‘Or go get drunk, really, whatever you want,’ she recalls, refused to cross his gaze. Later, she stood outside Chambers’ building and leaned against the railing for a smoke; Martha was pondering over her life choices when she saw Billy on his way back from the pub, walking up the road. He looked tipsy, she remembers, like he’d had a few. She wished she’d had had a few, too. ‘Waiting for your ride, Miss?’ he asked, standing next to her. She smiled, puffed out into the night.

‘No.’

Billy shifted closer, her left arm touching his right. ‘Any special plans with young Jerôme? Any sweet loving weekend away in paradise?’

Billy broke her heart without knowing it, that night, and Martha faked a smile anyway, breathing in another drag. She remembered the way Jerôme had charmed everyone after she’d introduced him to them - of course, he had, with his fancy suit and smart ways - Alan couldn’t stop talking about him for days. Clive had actually joked that their Head of Chambers might just have a crush on her boyfriend. 

‘You’re not even in a real relationship,’ Clive hadn’t failed to point out the following Monday, bugging her as she tried to get some reading done before court. ‘You just like him for his French glamour and fancy accent.’

Martha had laughed, shaken her head at him. ‘First, he’s not French, he’s Belgian,’ she’d said and Clive had shrugged in a way that said: same difference. ‘Second, what do you know about relationships, anyway, Clive?’

He’d ignored her, leaned in, looked into her eyes and declared: ‘Ay luve you, Maarta,’ in a frankly pretty terrible rendition of Jerôme’s accent. She’d rolled her eyes at him, pretended to focus on the papers in front of her. Her pen had felt heavy in her hand; she’d kept turning the top back and forth between her fingers, the tip going in and out.

‘Get off, Clive.’

Eight months later, she was fucking him against the door of their room while Jerôme waited for her at home with champagne and roses, and love, and that night Billy drunkenly whispered in her ear: ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with, Miss.’

.

Flashforward to: Clive and Martha’s second date, now, halfway through. She looks at him and finally musters the courage to ask how things are in Chambers. Martha’s not sure she wants to know, to tell the truth, because from the dark circles under his eyes and the tension that seems to be forever knotted in his shoulders, she can’t imagine it’s going great but she wants to be a good person, a good friend, so.

“Things are good,” Clive says, looking down at his plate. Chews on a piece of lasagne, quickly swallows it. “Busy.”

“Clive -”

“Can we just not –” he starts, trails off; she can’t help but scoff a little.

(Guess she’s not the only one who doesn’t want to talk, after all.)

“It’s just –” he starts (again), fiddling with his fork. Dents face up, dents face down, a few times, then: “I don’t want to argue with you and with work it’s what we always do. Now, there’s us, and there’s work, and to tell you the truth, I kind of like them separate.”

Martha immediately looks up from her plate. “Us?”

And behind his smile, Clive looks like he’s only just realising what he said, chooses not to utter another word. Martha can’t blame him. Doesn’t know if he spoke a bit too fast or if he doesn’t think she’s ready to hear what he has to say but in a way, she’s thankful, because truthfully, if that is the case, he’s probably right. She likes this, likes watching him, likes eye-fucking him, and genuinely fucking him, but doesn’t know if –

Billy used to call them ‘the kids,’ used to talk about ‘them’ like an item, like they only came in pairs, playing rock, paper, scissors - children on a playground. She tells Clive about it, asks him if he remembers – he does - pushes food around her plate. Sometimes, she wishes Billy were still here. Sometimes, she catches herself wondering if he’s still watching over them and it’s stupid, really, because she can’t even think of a time where she ever believed in that kind of bollocks but -

Clive’s hand gently finds her forearm; it makes her look back at him. He smiles, something sad and torn in his glance, fingers gentle against her skin. “Hey,” he says, calling her attention back to him. “I’m here.”

She smiles, too, shakes her head. Yeah, she thinks, she guesses that he is.

.

They have fun, the rest of the evening. Oddly, they talk about things that couples do. She learns stuff that she didn’t know about him and, she guesses, he learns stuff that he didn’t know about her, either. They talk about the two months she spent sleeping on his couch after she got dumped by Jerôme (or really, after she de facto dumped him, Martha’s not quite sure) and: “Oh my God, you couldn’t wait for me to leave, Clive,” she tells him. “Don’t pretend otherwise.” 

“Two words,” he laughs, counting on his fingers. “Crumpet. Crumbs. Everywhere.”

That’s three words, she thinks, rolls her eyes at him.

.

When Clive claims he’s never cheated on anyone before, Martha scoffs, almost chokes on her wine with laughter.

His argument, as she understands it, is that you can’t cheat when you’re never really in a relationship to begin with. She guesses that’s a valid point but: “I’m not sure the girls in question would agree.” Martha learns about Penelope Cooper, too, when she asks: “First?” with a telling smile on her face.

“First what?” he counters, because of course, he does, and she shakes her head, laughs for a bit.

“There’s only one context in which the word first is enough of a question, Clive. Answer it, don’t stall.”

And to his credit, he does. So, yeah: “Penelope Cooper,” he says, whom he apparently met on a summer field trip to Brighton when he was seventeen. With a name like that, Martha feels a sudden urge to Google her and figure out what kind of housewife she’s become. Clive throws the question back before she has a chance to, though - of course, he does - and Martha wonders if she should lie or not say anything for a bit, in light of recent events more than anything else, but then what the hell, she thinks, he’s probably got it figured out already. 

“Sean,” she says and granted: it may not have been the best decision she’s ever made, all things considered, but Clive nods, expected. “Fourteen.”

And, at that, though, he almost chokes on his wine. “Shit. Bit young, no?” he says and Martha rolls her eyes, grins, daring.

“Bit judgmental, no?”

They play that game for the rest of their meal, until their waitress comes to take their orders for desserts, quick questions and answers fired back and forth but it’s funny, really, how Martha finds that everything is tinted by genuine curiosity rather than animosity. She finishes her wine a couple of minutes later and finally decides that a trip to the ladies is way overdue, grabs her lipstick from her bag to reapply it in front of the mirror. When it touches her lips, she smiles to herself and realises that she looks good, happy. Make a wish, she thinks, again, blowing air that fogs up the mirror.

.

When she gets back to her seat, Clive is fiddling with something inside the pocket of his coat. “What’s that?” she asks.

But: “Nothing,” he simply answers, poker face immediately put back on.

She frowns but doesn’t push the issue (not now, anyway). It’s weird: he already gave her a present, today. It was lying on the backseat of his car when she got in; she changed into it in the bathroom of his hotel room.

“Hot damn,” Clive just laughed when she came out.

Black, silk, high neckline and open back – a cut on the side up the higher end of her thigh. A dress. The dress, maybe.

They get back to his hotel, now, and the place is fancy, a high tower with a view. Martha feels mildly out of place pretending that she isn’t, the kind of old habits that die hard. The room is nice, spacious, one of the higher floors; she watches out the window as she lays her bag down by the couch.

Clive sits on the bed, tugging at her hand. She stands between his legs, waits. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he admits, fingers absentmindedly playing with the hem of her dress.

She smiles, hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t know you would.”

He smirks and his fingers get more purposeful now, trailing up the skin of her thigh. “That’s kind of the point of surprises, Marth.”

“Yeah, and you had to surprise the whole neighbourhood in the process.”

“Hmhm.” One of his hands leaves her hip to curl at the back of her neck, thumb drawing circles against her cheek. “Come here,” Clive whispers, pulling Martha’s face down towards him. Before their lips can touch, though, he leans back slowly towards the mattress until she loses her balance and laughs, toppling on top of him.

She missed him, in Bolton, she realises. Missed the touch of his skin, his voice, the way he teases her, both in and out of bed, how comfortable his chest feels when she leans against it. That night, he finally – finally – unties the knot of her dress and she smiles against his skin, wonders out loud if he has any other surprises planned for the rest of the evening.

He hums in her ear as his hand travels up and down her bare back, the dress dangerously loose between them. “I don’t know, I’m not quite sure you like them anymore.”

His mouth travels under her ear down to her neck, hand pressing her closer to him. She kicks off her heels and kneels on top of him; Clive holds Martha in place and when a moan escapes her mouth, she feels him smile against her skin. “Depends what kind of surprise…” she whispers. He laughs under her.

Lips find hers then, nothing chaste or slow about that kiss, hands in her hair and body against hers. The thing is: it really feels like falling, now, doesn’t it?

.

She almost fell, once. Lost her balance, off the pavement, onto the road. Walked fast down a busy street, cars, and buses, and bikes speeding by. The night was dark, illuminated by lampposts; she could hear Sean running after her, rambling behind as he followed suit. Martha was wearing her favourite backpack, back then; it was black, with colourful pins and symbols on it, the kind of things you discreetly lift off the merch shop after gigs. She held the straps tight on each side of her chest; Manchester was cold, windy, her fingers numb and red against the chill - it felt comforting to hold onto something. Truth was: she didn’t want to run, just wanted him to leave her alone, wanted to get back to her books and the math test she hadn’t studied for the day after tomorrow. ‘Mar, listen to me,’ Sean said, grabbing her wrist, making her stop in her tracks.

She kept silent, looked to the floor. The concrete was dark, chewing gums stuck and coming off slightly lighter than the ground. She didn’t want to get angry, just -

‘She’s lying, all right? She’s mental, and lying – for fuck’s sake, you know this, Mar. I wouldn’t –’

‘You know what? I really don’t, actually –’

‘Mar,’ he said, stepped forward. She kept her eyes trained down, could see his shoes inches from her trainers, the edge of the pavement and the zebra crossing next to them – ‘Mar, look at me,’ he spoke, lower, pleaded. His hand stroked her cheek; she felt his thumb against her chin. ‘Look me in the eye.’

She didn’t want to but he made her anyway, gently tugging her face up; they were close, so close his eyes were the only thing Martha could see. Dark, lit by streetlights and the buildings a few meters out, the headlights of the cars driving past. Her heart was racing, she remembers, like it was about to stop.

‘I didn’t do this.’

The thing was: there were a lot of things that Sean didn’t do. Couldn’t do, wouldn’t do, could never do. She believed most of them. Believed him the same way she’d believed her mum when a promise was made that Dad was going to be all right, like it would do more harm than good if Martha didn’t at least pretend to buy a little bit into it. It never felt like it mattered anyway. Had he? Had he not? wasn’t the million-pound question Sean seemed to think it was, as if the fact that he could be telling the truth was suddenly going to solve everything. Martha needed to go, walk away, get the train back to Bolton, see her father, she needed to – ‘I’ve got to get home,’ she said, shaking her head, shaking him off her, stepping onto the road. He followed, dark shoes contrasting with the white strips of the crossing. His hand found her lower back and she stood still, shut her eyes not to look at him, thinking you’ve got to do this, thinking I can’t, thinking –

She felt his lips against hers, suddenly, rough and unapologetic, familiar and comfortable like they always were. They’d been doing this for years (four of them felt like a lifetime, back then, like she hadn’t ever been without him). Snogging in the back of pubs they weren’t supposed to be in and on the rooftop of her neighbours’ house, in his bed at his place when his mum went to rehab and they had the flat to themselves for weeks –

Martha responded instinctively, her hands in his hair, desperately wishing Sean to come with her, to get out of this place. She’d tried so hard, though, she needed to go off on her own, she needed to –

She heard the hoot of the bus before she felt the wind in her hair, loud, the kind of sound you only hear in genuine emergencies. Before Martha knew it, she felt herself getting pulled onto the pavement, her feet tripping a bit over the edge, the side of the double decker only missing her shoulder by an inch. The air rushed around them in the bus’s wake; Martha’s heart pounded in her chest. She felt Sean’s breath in her ear when he spoke; he was holding one of her hands, the other still on the side of her hip.

‘Shit,’ he whispered and smiled, chuckled softly against her. ‘I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.’

He stepped back to look at her and she felt herself responding to his smile, the corners of her mouth curving up against the tears that were crowding at the back of her eyes.

‘I love you, Mar,’ he said. It rang loud and real, in her ears.

‘I –’ she started. Her voice shook, eyes glistening. ‘I can’t.’ The light turned green, finally, and: ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ she told him, stepped away and back onto the road.

Martha didn’t even cry and when she left, he forgot to run after her.

That also felt like falling, she thinks.

.

With Clive, years later, it’s easy, easier. Easier to fall into his arms and harder to leave them. When Martha pads back from the bathroom around two in the morning, Clive’s sitting up against the headrest of his hotel bed, a soft, reading light casting low shadows over his face. She’s wearing his shirt; it covers her skin down to her thighs. There’s something in his eyes that she can’t quite identify, standing there in the middle of the room with her hair loose and almost no make-up on. “What?” she asks, frowns when he still doesn’t look away.

“You’re beautiful.”

And when he speaks, it’s in sharp contrast with his hot damn from earlier. Not only the words but the tone in his voice is different, too. Back then, it told her he wanted to fuck her, now it tells her that –

She rolls her eyes, crosses the distance to the bed.

“Are you having a laugh?” Martha jokes; she sits on her ankles with her legs folded under her, smooth, tangled sheets caressing her calves. Clive smiles, shaking his head at her.

“You really can’t take a compliment, can you?”

She moves again and lies down next to him, grabs her mobile from the bedside table. She’s aimlessly scrolling Twitter when she says: “I don’t know, Clive, they always seem to come about right before you ask me something.”

And to his credit (maybe because she’s pointing out the ropes behind his tricks so obviously), Clive doesn’t ask anything – right away, that is. Instead he turns the light off on his side, lets the room bask in the moonlight and the glow of Martha’s phone. He seems to ponder over something, it’s a long while before he speaks. “Did you really want to be Head of Chambers?”

She puts the phone down, bites her lip. He can’t see the specifics of her face, in the dark, the way she frowns when she considers the question, wonders if she should just tell him the truth. She was honest with him when she said she felt flattered, back then, and now –

“I’m scared of ending up like Alan, you know?” he volunteers after she fails to speak for a while, voice low like an articulate whisper. “Getting so caught up in office politics and paperwork that I won’t even have time to practice anymore.”

And it’s weak of her, maybe, but in that instant, Martha wishes she could go back, just five minutes, before they both stomped over every promise they’d ever made. She wishes she could forget, go back to London and walk into Chambers, play pretend like nothing ever happened.

“You won’t,” she says, instead, after a while, because it feels like the truth, like what she thinks, at least. “You were meant to do this. You’ll pull through. You always do.”

And maybe, she’s the one who doesn’t (pull through, that is). Maybe, after all, Martha’s the one who runs and gives up. “You think that?” Clive asks, genuine, seeking her approbation and she’s honest, thinks: yes. Thinks of him at twenty-three trying to get tenancy, a few years back, trying to get silk, thinks of Jody Farr and Sarah Stevens, and Sean, and –

“It was never Caroline or me, Clive,” Martha says, then, shaking her head, eyes closed, listening to the sound of her own voice, and the sound of his breaths in her ear. She’s not stupid, knows what her strengths are. Passion, dedication, a strong sense of justice, not fitting in. But he does: fit in. And that’s a good thing, too. He’s funny and caring and is a good diplomat, and wants to do things right, knows how to make people like him. (And again, she really does, like him.) “I wish you could have done it without hurting Billy or forcing me out,” she tells him, still, because she wants him to know that, wants him to know that he did wrong, there. “But you needed Harriet on your side and she never really gave you a choice, did she?”

Clive is silent for a while, to the point that she actually wonders if he’s fallen asleep, after all, looks up at him to cross his gaze. “I missed you,” he finally says and she’s got to admit it warms her heart a bit. She smiles, chuckles softly and teases him.

“You missed the sex,” she argues and feels his laughter shake his body under hers.

“Yeah, maybe that, too,” she feels him whisper, then, against her lips.

.

Now, she’s at the pub for this one.

It’s The Crown. She recognises it immediately, with the booths and the tables, and the bar in the middle, but honestly, it might just be because this one pub is the pub she knows best, in London. The place comes to mind uninvited like memories of Billy and summer days, dropping the butt of her cigarette to the floor, shoving her wig into a plastic bag.

The music is loud – so, it’s not really The Crown - the beat of the drums blaring on base speakers. She feels like she’s falling, tumbling down.

It’s a different song, not the right one.

The other one was repetitive, had a rhythm to it. This one’s wilder, scarier, unrecognisable. Martha tries to shift, shake her head, tries to –

Sad to see you go, was sort of hoping that you’d stay – well, hell, it doesn’t feel like she really has a choice, anyway. She hears a man’s voice, feels someone holding her hand.

It’s pitch darkness. It’s often pitch darkness, in her head, these days, but they don’t tell her why she can’t see. Martha doesn’t see him, doesn’t see what he looks like, but she feels the wall against her back, smells beer, urine, body odour - public toilets. Tequila.

She can’t move. Limbs are lumps and she can’t breathe. His hands are around her neck; Martha chokes, tries to scream but the sounds are trapped, aren’t leaving her mouth. His body is against hers, bare skin against her palms –

She tries to fight back, hit, push him away but he’s holding her wrists and –

“Marth!” she hears, loud in her ears. Her eyes open with a start.

The room is dark around her, unfamiliar. She can tell because now, she can see.

Her heart pounds in her chest. This isn’t her bed, or her sheets, or her room, or her walls, or –“Shhh, you’re all right.”

That voice, she knows, recognises. The grasp on her wrists loosens; a soft hand finds her cheek. It’s familiar, soothing, draws circles on her skin as the voice keeps softly shushing in her ear.

“Shhh, you’re okay,” it says. “It’s okay,” sometimes. “It’s just a nightmare.”

And: fuck, she thinks. Says so, too, as soon as the memories from the night before come back to her: she’s in a hotel room with Clive, she’s –

Her fists relax against Clive’s skin, unclenched, flat on his chest. “Shit,” she adds. Looks up. There’s a worried smile on his lips; she can tell he wants her to think it’s reassuring. “Did I hit you?”

Clive lets out a soft chuckle, then, something quiet and smooth, drops a kiss to her forehead. “Yeah, well, let’s say that just because you were right to slap me in the face once doesn’t mean we should make a habit out of this,” he jokes.

Martha doesn’t laugh, though. Only shows a slight, tense smile, breathes in and out and finally dares to close her eyes again, for a second. Her heart still races. “Sorry,” she whispers, shifts against Clive and lays her head back against his shoulder, hand settling over his chest. His fingers smooth her hair; it helps her calm down.

Clive waits, unsure whether to speak; Martha can feel his uncertainty in the air. For better or for worse though, Clive always speaks, in the end. “You okay?” he asks, quietly.

She doesn’t answer - doesn’t know how - hears him swallow.

“You were saying ‘no.’”

Martha feels herself freeze, then, hand stilling against his skin. More embarrassing than waking up from a nightmare and trying to hit him in her sleep, is probably him knowing exactly what she was dreaming about. Fucking stupid. She shouldn’t have gotten drunk, called Billy and, well, everything, really.

So, she shuts her eyes. Maybe, if she pretends to fall back asleep, Clive might believe her. Martha wishes that she would, actually (fall back asleep, that is) and not wake up in the middle of the night anymore, wishes Clive didn’t have to know this about her, either.

It doesn’t happen every night. Sometimes, she’s so tired that –

It shouldn’t have happened tonight.

“Hey,” he whispers. His mouth is so close to her skin that she feels his words brushing against her hair. “Look at me.”

She doesn’t. Not now, not when she feels like she could cry, just thinking about it. Her jaw clenches; she’s pretty sure he feels her tense against him. Clive doesn’t seem to mind, though, just keeps talking to her and drawing slow, smooth patterns over her skin.

“I wish I knew what was going on in your head,” he confesses and: you don’t, she thinks. You really, really don’t but: “Marth,” he says, repeats words that she doesn’t think he’s ever stopped thinking. “It’s not your –”

Oh, this again, she thinks. Rolls her eyes, quick, rolls over, away from him. “I know,” she sighs, lies, with her back turned to him, hoping that he won’t see through it, force her to see reality for what it is. “Just leave it, okay?”

He doesn’t. Of course, he doesn’t. “Marth, have you tried talking to some -”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, she thinks. Says so, too. He’s going to start telling her she needs fucking therapy, now, or that she needs his fucking help, and anger (fear) boils down at the pit of her stomach - how many times will she have to tell him that she’s fine. That she doesn’t want to talk, have conversations, listen to her own sense of self-pity. Listen to him trying to help her, maybe, when he doesn’t owe her anything, really. With her back turned to him, she sits up and flings her legs over the edge of the bed, grabs the dress he gave her from off the floor and starts to unbutton his shirt to put it on. “If you’re going to be like that,” she says. “I’m going back to Bolton -”

It’s the middle of the night and when she throws a quick glance over her shoulder, Clive’s looking at her like she’s fucking insane - the bed moves on his end; she feels him sit up as well. “Fucking hell, Marth –” he starts; she casts a murderous glare a him. She’s managed to get the shirt off, now, is sliding the dress back on, tying its silk knot behind her neck. When she put it on, in this very hotel room, just hours before, he was the one who tied it up; she shivered with the touch of his fingers on her skin. “What?” he says, now, and she’d wondered if he might consider dropping it, but clearly, he won’t. “I can’t talk to you anymore,” he accuses, case in hand, she guesses. “You don’t want conversations, don’t want to talk about work, about us, about this. Marth, I –”

She stands up, turns around. Handbag hanging off her arm, she checks that there’s enough cash in her purse for a taxi; Martha’s glare is hard on him when she speaks. “I almost fucking got raped, Clive,” she tells him, and the words, really, are out of her mouth before she can think them through. They hurt with the magnitude of them - she’s never, ever, used that word before, not even in her head. It’s a fact, though, isn’t it? And she feels her heart hammering in her chest, tears welling up at the back of her eyes. “What the fuck is there to talk about?”

And that does shut him up, after all. Clive looks at her like they’ve reached the end of a time when he knew exactly what to say, when protecting her from her nightmares was something he still thought he could do. There is stunned silence, on his end. I almost got raped, she thinks, again, and it’s true, and she doesn’t want it to be true, doesn’t want to be that girl, never wanted to think she was a victim. She didn’t want him to know about the nightmares because if he did (he does, now), then it would become real, the fact that she relives that night again and again in her head.

Clive doesn’t stop staring, though, as she checks the floor for forgotten items (her bra, a pair of pants); she’d had such a good day, didn’t need it to end like this.

Her hand is on the handle of the door, her back to him, when she hears his voice rising from behind her. It’s quiet, stops her movements, and stills her in her place. “That, for instance,” he just says. Martha’s eyes shut. “We can talk about that. Or anything else you want. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not letting you go. Not again.”

Her hand drops from the handle. Martha keeps her back to him, eyes closed; if she opens them now, tears will begin to stream down her cheeks and she won’t be able to hold them in. Just like that, the anger, the frustration, they melt within her, clogging her throat. It’s a long time before she moves again, turns around and faces him, fingers shaking in the dark. Their gazes cross; she’s honest – just really, really honest. “I’m scared,” she says. Her handbag falls to the floor. Martha feels like he can see right through her when she repeats: “I’m scared, Clive. All the fucking time.”

And, it’s not only what happened that night, to tell the truth. It’s Billy; it’s Sean; it’s everything that’s changed lately and everything that hasn’t, everything that means she’s not quite sure how to trust the world, anymore. Clive knows that, Martha thinks, so he just stays silent. Looks at her from where he’s sitting, against the back of the bed and a sigh comes out of his mouth; she sees fear in his eyes, too. “Please, don’t go,” he just says. Pleads.

So, she doesn’t go. The anger and resentment have evaporated in the air as quickly as they rose up within her; she’s tired, now, just so fucking tired. Martha just wants someone to hold her and tell her that everything will be okay. She wants him to do what he always does best, find the solutions to the things that clog her brain, be it with laughter or a hug blown her way. Years ago, she remembers struggling, following the break up with Jerôme. Her stuff took over Clive’s living room and apart from going to work, she barely moved from his couch, her look always cast in the general direction of the telly – she became well acquainted with mid-afternoon weekend programmes, developed an unhealthy obsession with true crime documentaries and the royal family, and – yes ­– ate a lot of frozen crumpets.

It took three weeks for Clive to decide an intervention was necessary. Woke her up at seven in the morning on a Sunday, drew the curtains wide open, loud music on the speakers. ‘Get up,’ he said.

Martha mumbled something unintelligible at him, threw the covers over her head to keep the sunlight from intruding.

‘Come on, we’re going in half an hour.’

More grumbling ensued; it took a while for Martha to fully emerge (not before he’d presented her with considerable amounts of coffee) and even then, she wasn’t particularly agreeable. ‘What the fuck, Clive?’ she asked, still refusing to leave the couch. He smelled of fresh, clean soap and his aftershave, was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with an old jumper thrown over it. She was – well. She doesn’t think she’d showered since before work on Friday.

Clive failed to listen to her protestations, simply rummaged through her open suitcase on the floor, fished out an outfit. ‘Go on, get showered, wear this. We’re leaving soon.’

Martha’s got to admit, she wasn’t much nicer to him in the car. Part of it was simply down to the fact that she’d never been a morning person (seven on a Sunday? What the hell?) and part of it was that, well, she generally is quite stubborn. The ride was silent and, for the most part, she had the nasty feeling that Clive was just silently laughing to himself, mocking her state of discontent, which did nothing to appease Martha’s particular sense of annoyance. She was thirty-five years old, for fuck’s sake, didn’t need him to tell her how to live her life.

They arrived about two hours later. The place was deserted, in the middle of fucking fields; Clive stopped at the entrance of a rundown, gravel road to look at his phone. Martha took one glance at the sign in front of them and said: ‘Nope,’ opened the door and stepped out of the car. He laughed, looked around.

‘And, where do you think you’re going?’

To her further annoyance, Martha noted that yes, he was unfortunately correct: apart from a few isolated farms and cattle, there wasn’t really anywhere to go. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen a car drive past them in a good while, come to think of it. She got back into the passenger seat next to him, closed the door. ‘You’re fucking insane,’ she said.

‘Oh, go on. I’ve done it before. Lots of fun.’

She glared at him. ‘Jumping out of a plane is fun?’

Yes, because the thing to note, here (the important thing to note), was that: Skydiving London, London’s Parachute School, was written on the sign at the entrance of the narrow, gravel road in front of them. Clive put his phone back in the pocket of his jacket, left hand shifting the gears back into first. ‘More fun than sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself,’ he argued, pointed. Martha rolled her eyes. ‘Call it my belated birthday present to you, then,’ he said.

.

The thing is, though: it’s not much of a birthday present when you’re being forced into it.

So: in prep, she hated his guts. On the plane, she hated his guts. But: ‘You’re smiling,’ he said, a few minutes after they’d touched the ground, walking towards her. She’d landed a good while before he did but Martha’s hands still shook, brain infused with adrenaline.

‘Oh, fuck off, Clive,’ she laughed, happy and genuine. He pulled her into a tight hug.

‘I fucking love you, Martha Costello,’ he said in her ear, loud and buzzing, and she’s not quite sure why but the phrase why d’you only call me when you’re high came into her brain, then, because they were definitely high on something, that day. Martha smiled but still rolled her eyes at him when he pulled her towards him and lifted her feet off the ground, twirling them around.

‘Okay, okay, you’re great too, please put me down!’ she laughed before he settled them back on the ground, doesn’t know if even back then, he’d meant the words in a way that she didn’t, or didn’t understand them, didn’t want to understand them. Martha thinks about what Jo asked, a couple of weeks ago, and: ‘we’ve been best friends for the last fifteen years, of course, I love him,’ she’d said, true, but then maybe not.

In his hotel room in Manchester, five years later, Martha still doesn’t want to tell him what’s in her head and yet, she does climb back into bed with him, toes off her shoes and lies on top of the covers at his side, head resting against his shoulder. They’re silent for a while; she remembers how he made her feel better, that day, about herself and about her breakup, made it easier to function, somehow. He holds her close, now, his thumb softly caressing the bare skin of her arm; she feels his chest rise and fall against her ear.

He must feel her smile at the memory of the both of them because she feels him smile, too, ask: “Penny for your thoughts.”

“‘Let’s get rich and buy our parents homes, in the South of France,’” she recites, jokes, remembers how they’d screamed the song off the top of their lungs on the way back from the skydiving school, still elated with the jump and the rush of adrenaline. Clive smiles, under her, nods.

“Oh yeah, that was a good day,” he says. Holds her close to him in the dark until she feels him shift, reach for something under the bed. She leans back on her arm, head supported by her palm, intrigued. “Close your eyes,” he says, and Martha frowns just a bit. She can’t see any reason not to comply, though, so her eyelids shut in the dark. Clive moves, drops something against the sheets. “Okay, open up.”

The moon casts a light glow over their bed from the window behind her. There is a box, now, laid down on the sheets.

It’s quite a decent-sized box, wrapped in leftover Christmas paper; Martha bites her lip and smiles.  “What’s that, Clive?”

“Couldn’t find the right time to give it to you all day,” he responds, enigmatic, pretending to ignore her question. He’s good, she thinks, smiling. Almost even got her to forget her own - “Come on,” Clive whispers. “Open it.”

She rolls her eyes and takes the box in her hands; the thing is quite big, rectangular, twenty centimetres long, at least, but when she picks it up, there’s something loose inside, like whatever it is, it’s actually smaller. Clive, of course, could turn on the lights to help her in this enterprise but instead he doesn’t, just watches her struggle as she tears the wrapping paper off the box and finds cardboard underneath, rolls her eyes – “Is this just entertainment for you to watch me open this?” she jokes and he laughs, just egging her on.

Eventually, Martha manages to peel off the tape that holds the cardboard closed, opens the flaps on top of the box, and –

There is another box, inside the box. A much smaller box, a little square, black box, covered in velvet and suddenly, Martha understands the purpose of the bigger box, because if she’d seen the smaller box first, she’d probably have run out the door by now. She’s seen little black boxes like these in the movies, takes a wild guess as to what is in there and even if she’s got to admit she hates it when a book mentions that someone’s heart stopped beating and then goes on without mentioning their death, Martha thinks right this minute, that’s exactly what happens to hers. It stops her words, her movements, the air coming in and out of her lungs.

She looks up at Clive, looks down at box and maybe, this is a mistake, she thinks, but it doesn’t look like it. “Open it,” he says.

Obviously, she’s not capable of rational thought, right this minute, which is why Martha does as she’s told, almost automatically, like a kid saying “thanks” and “please” just because their parents said so. There’s a part of her that hopes she’s got it wrong, that it’s not what she thinks it is. She looks down, but then, it’s exactly what she thinks it is. It’s a black box with a ring in it, with a diamond mounted on it, with –

She opens her mouth to say – well, she doesn’t know what to say, actually.

It probably shows on her face because: “Before you say anything,” Clive interrupts, his hand shortly touching her knee. “It’s – It was my grandmother’s.” Martha can tell it’s meant to be an explanation, but it doesn’t explain anything, as far as she’s concerned, other than the look of it, she guesses, how old and lovingly ornate it is. “She said –” Clive starts, looks at her, smiles. “Actually, it doesn’t matter what she said. I’m not asking, or proposing, anything, Marth. You can wear it, or keep it locked in a drawer forever if you want. I don’t care. It’s yours,” he adds, shrugs. “She gave it to me over ten years ago and I already knew it was yours,” he smiles, finds her glance. “Sorry it took so long to give it you.”

Her mouth opens, closes; it’s a very long time until she feels like words might even leave it again, one day. She watches her fingers, the way her skin contrasts with the cover of the box, the white sheets of their hotel bed. It occurs to her that Clive may still be speaking, or not, may be waiting for her to say something. She feels dizzy. Dizzy like that day when she dragged him into an empty courtroom and held onto his hand for fear that the ground may collapse under them.

As if reading her mind – or maybe how white her face gets - “Are you going to swoon again?” Clive asks, joking, and it may not be that clever or that funny but at least she does hear his words, then, it gives her brain something to focus on.

“Fuck off,” she laughs, shaking her head. A soft chuckle escapes his lips.

Martha doesn’t really mean to but slowly, she finds herself picking the box up and bringing it closer to her eyes, watching the moonlight as it dances upon it. Things get less blurry as she focuses, but still, she’s careful, takes the ring out of the box, feels the weight of it in her hand.

The part of her brain that is somehow still alive and responsive silently acknowledges that yes: it’s beautiful, magnificent in fact, discreet and elegant, definitely the kind of thing she would wear if –

The words get stuck in her throat. The memories, they course through her brain: something happened, that night after they jumped out of the plane. Martha remembers not being able to sleep, padding into his bedroom and lying down next to him.

She thought he was asleep but when she turned onto her side to rest her head on his shoulder, his arm instinctively reached around, hand settling at her side. ‘What’s up?’ he whispered in her hair.

‘Can’t sleep.’

She remembers wishing that she could say it was the jump, the rush of adrenaline still keeping her awake, but she knew it wasn’t. It was a different kind of feeling, heartbreak, maybe; she thought back at the last few weeks she’d spent on Clive’s sofa, let out a soft sigh against the cotton of his shirt.

‘I miss Jérôme, you know?’ she admitted, in the dead of night. She wanted, back then, to explain why she’d been like this, why she’d felt sad, why – ‘I didn’t love him,’ Martha added, a desire to set the record straight, to explain why she hadn’t been able to properly get out of bed for days. ‘But I miss him. Is that weird?’

Something soft, between a sigh and a smile came out of Clive’s mouth. ‘No,’ he said. She closed her eyes.

‘I fucking hate myself for what I did to him.’

And that, she was pretty sure Clive knew as well. She felt it in his breaths, the way he almost opened his mouth to counter with – something, anything, to say that everyone made mistakes, that it wasn’t that bad, that –

Martha shook her head, quiet, bit her lip. ‘I felt something,’ she admitted (because nights are made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day, aren’t they?). Clive tensed, as if he knew what she was going to say, do, and in fairness he probably did, probably felt it too. I felt something with you, she thought and felt his heartbeat rush against her ear, the only indication he gave that he was actually listening, his whole body still, as though trying to pretend that this wasn’t real. It was real, she thought. And: ‘It’s not right, Clive,’ she told him.

She felt a move, then, a sign of life; he smiled and looked down at her, crossed her gaze, letting out a breath. ‘And why is that, Marth? Why not us?’ he shrugged. The question sounded genuine, like he couldn’t really see the objections that kept forming in her head, the moment she realised what words came to her when all she wanted was to shout at Jérôme (I cheated on you with my best friend, and it felt more like love than a one-night-stand).

Martha looked away, then, up to the ceiling, avoided Clive’s glance. ‘Relationships,’ she started to explain, tried to explain –

‘Love -’ Clive amended, cut her off; she rolled her eyes.

‘Well, whatever it is,’ she said, shrugged. ‘It always goes to shit either way.’

And that was that, or so she thought. Five years later, as the conversation replays in her head, her jaw clenches again; she looks up at Clive and wishes she hadn’t heard him when he spoke and gave her the ring, earlier. “What did your nan say?” she asks, now. The diamond of the ring shines in the dark; she sits up and turns her body around to face him, legs folded and bare under her. Martha holds the ring between her thumb and forefinger to take a better look at it. “You said it didn’t matter. I think it does. What did your nan say about the ring?”

Martha hears his sigh, next to her. Clive finds her gaze; he’s trying to gauge her reaction, what she wants or doesn’t want to hear. “You’re not going to like it,” he warns, and Martha supposes that no, she won’t.

“That’s never stopped you before,” though, she points out. And it’s true: for better or for worse, Clive’s never made a habit of sheltering her from the things she doesn’t want to hear.

His jaw clenches; he looks up, hesitates, but settles on the truth, always. “‘Give it to the girl you love,’” he quotes, catches her gaze before she can escape it. “And I do. I love you.”

It’s a while before Martha stops watching the ring, after he speaks, as if she suddenly expects it to grow legs and walk away from her, like Clive did a few months ago. “I –” she starts, trails off, because in truth, if she didn’t know what to say to him six months ago in an empty courtroom, she still doesn’t know what to say, now. I meant what I said, she remembers him saying – it didn’t stop him from putting a knife through her back, now, did it? Martha looks at Clive and despite the calm and healing of the past few days, she still sees the way he betrayed Billy when her eyes set on him, the way he betrayed her, too. She shifts, away from him. Looks down at her knees when she says: “I can’t give you what you want.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the truth, she thinks, the brutal, honest truth. She expects him to fight her but a soft sound escapes his mouth instead, something between a sigh and a laugh. “And what is it that I want, Marth?” he asks, genuine. Clive’s not aggressive, in his words, just disbelieving. “What is it that you think I want? And actually, what is it that you want, because you never talk about that, do you?”

And when he said he loved her, after they’d jumped out of a plane and landed safely on the ground, she called it friendship. Of course I love him, she even said to Jo, just a few weeks ago. And when he said it again at his silk party, and insisted he meant what he said, well Martha didn’t believe him. For months after that, every one of his transgressions seemed to suggest it: see, you don’t really love me, do you? She thought that maybe, Clive didn’t fully understand what the words even meant, or what love was, but what occurs to her, now, is that there might not be a difference, as long as he believes it to be true. Her gaze drifts from him to the ring, in her hand, and she remembers the vow she made to him, a long time ago. We tell each other everything and I want you to wake me up, is the first thing that she thinks, now. She doesn’t want to tell him the specifics of her nightmares, might never even find the words to explain them, but she wants Clive to be there when she has them, wants him to chase off her fears with his smiles. Yet, also: “I don’t want commitments,” she starts. “Or –”

“And you think I do?” he throws back, laughing a bit, and Martha thinks he’s spoken before thinking, there, he almost looks surprised by his own words, as if it hadn’t even occurred to him before this point. Martha stares, genuinely confused, before he goes on. “Just because I love you doesn’t mean that I do. It hurts too much when we fall apart, Marth,” he admits. His voice breaks a bit but then there’s a pragmatic look that makes its way into his eyes; Clive glances down at the both of them in bed, his own clothes still scattered around the room. “But it looks like we can’t stop this from happening, so what do we do, now?” he asks her and for once, she can tell he doesn’t have the answer to his own question.

So, she realises: it’s down her to think. And, maybe he’s right. Maybe they’ve tried and failed at the one-last-time routine too many times to believe that it might actually work, that they might actually cut this thing off, never to return again. Martha argues the one thing that comes to mind, then, the one thing that makes sense to her. “We have rules,” she says, looking up at the ceiling. She feels Clive smile next to her, a curious eyebrow raised.

“Rules?”

“Rules.” And it’s up to her – to them – to define them, she realises. They’ve never had this conversation before - she’d never have allowed it, back then, preferred to put her head in the sand - so maybe she should be the one to start, now. “We agree on them,” she says, as a preamble. “And we don’t deviate.” Clive smiles, for a bit; it gives her time to think. “We’re not together,” rule number one, she thinks. “If this,” she points between the both of them. “Interferes with work, we’re done. If we fall too hard, we’re done.”

“If we lie to each other, we’re done,” Clive cuts in, adds. Martha ponders over it for a moment; she doesn’t like it, but they both have to make concessions, she guesses. Shifts, extends her right hand between them. Her little finger lifts up; Clive smiles.

“Pinky swear?” she says, like he did back then, when he made her promise to tell him everything.

Clive smiles, locks his finger with hers. “Pinky swear.”

Wordlessly, then, she lets go of his hand and picks the ring up from where it fell next to her on the sheets, takes it in her left hand and slides it down the ring finger on her right. It sits well, there, Martha thinks, looking at it and biting her lip as she glances up at him. It’s an engagement ring, not an engagement, and it’s opposites; she likes it: it’s a good thing. Her hand rests between them and he gently takes it in his, steady and oddly certain of something that she can’t quite identify. She feels his fingers brush against her skin, feels the cold of the metal as it slides down to base. It fits. She feels like Cinderella with shoes on.

“Happy birthday, Marth,” Clive adds, then, softly and she laughs, loud and contagious because he does, too. She’s thirty-nine years old, tonight, and her life has been turned upside down but whatever we are, she thinks and it rings true, in her ear, like Billy’s words used to when he called them ‘the kids’ and invented them as an item, as an us bubbling under their skin. 

Martha falls asleep, later, and maybe yeah, falling is exactly like this.

Chapter Text

viii.

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days. Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made and she’s chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings. Sunday pulls its children from the piles of fallen leaves.

Passing Afternoon – Iron & Wine

The next time Martha opens her eyes, it’s to the sound of the shower running. The bed is cold, empty next to her; it takes a moment to remember where she is. Daylight has broken outside, not sunny but light, the clouds almost white, hiding the sun in the sky.

She yawns, sits up, inspects the room; the shower stops. There is a pair of dirty trainers at the entrance, by the door, a fitted rain jacket draped over the armchair, the alarm clock reads 9:37 –

Clive comes out of the bathroom just then, hair still wet and a towel wrapped around his waist. Her gaze trails down his frame (Martha wouldn’t be this obvious about it if her brain were functioning normally, but then again, she’s never really been subtle in the morning) and: not bad, she catches herself thinking.

“Done looking?” Clive teases, smiles; she blushes a bit.

“You went running.” An observation; her voice is groggy and full of sleep. She rolls over to her side, back to the window, curls her knees up a bit under the covers and closes her eyes again.

“Yep,” Clive speaks, like it’s a normal thing to do before nine on a Saturday morning, and crawls back in bed with her. She groans, at the droplets that hit her skin and at the fact that she’s pretty sure she’s been paying a good fifty quid a month for the last five years for a gym she’s barely ever set foot in, likes to think of it as the cost of her punishment for not going.

“Didn’t you have a boring conference to get to?” Martha mumbles; she feels his hand on her arm, oddly warm and cosy.

“And yet, I’ve made the ultimate sacrifice and decided to stay here with you instead,” he quips and kisses her, then, a long peck on her lips. Opening her eyes, she realises that he’s staring right back at her. “Come on, sleepyhead,” he whispers, getting back up, pointing to the nightstand behind him. “I got you coffee.”

.

They walk around Manchester all day. Clive’s driving home that night so they leave his bags at the hotel and try to make the most of their time in the city. There’s nowhere to be in particular, really, but for some reason, Martha holds Clive’s hand on the way. It’s odd, at first, kissing him in a place where no one knows them, kissing him when she wants to, rather than to make a statement. There’s an understanding between them, now; she knows what the rules are and it feels strange, almost, somewhat freeing.

Late morning, they stumble upon some sort of fair; Clive beats her twice at a game that entails throwing darts at balloons and popping as many of them as possible within a limited amount of time; she’s not sure what irritates her most: the fact that he won twice, or the fact that her irritation seems to set off uncontrollable fits of laughter on his side of the argument. She’s thankful when his phone goes off just as he offers her to re-game (“you’re such a sore loser, Marth,” he tells her); she sits down on a bench as he steps aside to take the call. It’s more of a polite gesture than anything else - she can still hear everything when he speaks.

By then, the wind has chased some of this morning’s clouds away, sun hovering in and out of view; she feels the heat on her face. “Ellie, hey! Thanks for calling back! How are you?” Clive says, on the phone, and: oh right, Martha thinks to herself, getting her own mobile out to scroll at the latest headlines of the Guardian. Eleanor (Ellie), is Clive’s sister. She’s a couple years older than him, Martha knows, and although they’ve never met, Martha’s always felt a bit of sympathy for the woman, being the only girl out of four children – one of the boys being Clive – it can’t have been easy. He probably called her first, this morning when he was out on his run; his niece’s birthday is the day after Martha’s. ‘I’ll never forget that one,’ he’d laughed, a few years ago, after the girl was born.

Each article on Martha’s phone tells the tale of another government fuck-up, so it becomes more uplifting to listen to Clive, after a while.

“So, how’s your birthday going, Princess?” he asks, suddenly, speaking on the phone and his voice has grown softer; he’s speaking his niece, Martha guesses. “Oh yeah? A bike? And it’s purple? Wow,” Clive goes on and Martha betrays the fact that she is listening in by letting out a quiet chuckle; Clive turns to her and smirks, shaking his head. He lets the girl chat to him for a bit, smiling at Martha from where he stands, voice periodically throwing in kind words like “Oh, that’s good,” and: “Really?” He’s good, Martha thinks to herself, cares. “Well, that’s a lot of presents there, Rosie,” Clive interjects, later; Martha can tell he’s interrupted by the little girl again. “Ooooh,” he repeats, throwing Martha a knowing look. “Uncle Clive gives the best presents, is that right?”

Martha laughs to herself but he does give great gifts, she guesses, absentmindedly twisting the ring around her finger. A bit of debating ensues between the girl and Clive. “A castle?” he says. “That’s a bit complicated Rosie. Where’s Mummy going to put it? In the garden?” The girl probably giggles at the other end of the line.

Eventually, though, Martha gets lured back in by the Guardian’s headlines, dragged into reading yet another analytic piece on the Scottish referendum, she kind of tunes out of whatever Clive is saying until a few minutes later, when she feels him sit down next to her on the bench, sighing loudly with exhaustion, extending his legs in front of him. His mobile is gone from the side of his ear.

“She wants a castle, dolls, and some sort of boxset to make candles,” Clive says with a smile, throwing a quick glance at Martha. She smirks up at him. “How do I keep my title of best uncle in the whoooole word if I can’t deliver? The pressure is unbearable,” he jokes, arm touching hers.

And, that’s when, as they start talking about Clive’s niece and sister, and the family gathering next week, Martha has an idea. To be fully honest, it comes by way of her mum, actually, who complained to her a couple of days ago. ‘We’re throwing this out and you never even played with it, what a waste,’ she’d said, a reproachful glare aimed at her daughter as they packed the house into boxes. Wait, Martha thinks to herself, she took a picture of it -

“Oh, wow, was that yours?” Clive asks a bit later, quickly taking the phone from Martha’s hand. He zooms in on the details of the photograph; the angle isn’t the best but it does manage to show how massive the bloody thing is - it took up about half the wall space on one side of Martha’s bedroom.  

“Yeah,” she laughs. “I mean not really. I don’t think I ever played with it.”

Clive nods, seems very interested in what’s on the picture. “Let me check with Ellie, though, I don’t know if they’d have the space.”

For another while, the both of them just stay there, sitting on the bench, enjoying the fleeting sun and watching other people play the darts game. Martha’s wearing the same jeans as yesterday; they’re a bit dusty and worn off, from all the moving done over at her mum’s house, paler in the daylight. She drinks a sip from a can of coke; Clive looks at his phone when it chirps again. What comes in from his sister in lieu of a response is a short video of a few seconds; Clive plays it for the both of them, laughs out loud at the end. It shows a little girl, first, brown hair and bright blue eyes, running down a staircase and around a kitchen, shouting off the top of her lungs: “I’m getting a dollhouse!! I’m getting a dollhouse!!” to whoever is willing (and unwilling) to listen. Martha bursts out laughing when what she guesses is Eleanor’s face comes into focus, a stern look in her eyes.

“When you have kids, Clive,” she says. “They’re getting a drum kit.”

.

Later, when the both of them stop at a pub for lunch, Clive gets a burger and a pint of Heineken and Martha she judges him loudly on his choice of beer, stealing a few chips from his plate. She’s not particularly hungry, shrugs at the food that is on her side of the table. “Last night,” Clive starts and of course he wants to talk about last night, again, as if they hadn’t talked enough. There’s still a bit of embarrassment, on Martha’s end, about the dream she had; she doesn’t think it’ll ever go away. “You said you didn’t want this,” he gestures between the both of them. “To interfere with work. Does that mean you’re thinking of coming back to work?”

Oh, she thinks. Not what she thought he would ask. And: “No,” she shakes her head, isn’t. Not really. It’s just that since she’s coming back to London tomorrow night, and since that wasn’t part of her plan, then she doesn’t know what the plan is, anymore. The fleeting idea she had of taking over her parents’ house and opening a pub in Bolton hasn’t been replaced by something new, yet. “I feel like I should do something,” she tells Clive, and in a practical sense, of course, she’s got bills to pay, but: “I just don’t know what.”

“Not Chambers, though?” he confirms; there’s a lingering glimer of hope in his voice.

“Not Chambers.”

She’d assumed he would look crushed, then, and maybe there’s a little bit of that, still, but he hides it behind a smile. “Okay,” he says, starts to think and suggests: “Florist?” randomly. Martha bursts out laughing, shaking her head at him. “Barmaid? Carpenter? Sex shop owner?” he says and the propositions get wilder and wilder; he makes her crack up and roll her eyes at him in equal amounts.

“And what makes you think I’d do that?” she laughs, a curious grin on her lips. Clive shrugs, smirks.

“Well, you’ve got experience, haven’t you?”

She bursts out laughing. “Experience in what?”

“Well, I was going for barmaid on that one but what have you not told me about your uni years, Martha?” he teases.

They laugh for a while longer, eating their food. There’s a distinct lack of pressure when she speaks to him; she’s honest, funny. Clive looks at Martha when he finishes his pint, suggests: “Teacher?” She laughs at that one, too.

It’s definitely never been her thing. Kind of a classic for all the other girls in school, who wanted to be another Mrs Williams when they grew up. No, Martha wanted to be a vet, then an actress. She wanted centre stage, never particularly liked school. Didn’t like being taught, even by her parents. When she was a teenager, she remembers, her father sat her down, once, intent on setting the record straight. The rays of sunshine peeked through the garden of their house, morning light falling past the Georgian windows. Martha remembers the awkwardness on his face – she was fifteen, already, chipped, jet-black varnish on her nails and truth be told, by that point, he was a little too late.

‘Look, Martha, you’re refusing to talk to your mother so we figured –’

‘Well, unless she apologises for what she said about –’

‘That’s enough.’ Her father held up his hand between the both of them. Martha heard the tone in his voice, relented. ‘Due to the current state of things in this household,’ he paraphrased, quickly, leaving no time for her to pushback again. ‘We figured that I would be the one to have this conversation with you.’

He’d made tea for the both of them so Martha reckoned the talk must be serious, figured he was – again – going to try and hammer into her brain the importance of going to uni; as far as she was concerned, being fifteen made her young, not deaf.

Martha sipped on her tea, waited. She noticed her father got a bit red in the cheeks when he spoke, all of a sudden. ‘Are you and Sean, er, well -?’

He trailed off and Martha frowned, for a moment. Together was the first word that came to her mind, but then her parents knew that already, so why would her dad – oh, she thought. That.

Martha let go of her mug and crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair. Her father sighed, caught her glare. ‘Martha, help me out, here. Please don’t make this difficult.’

She dealt with it the only way she knew to deal with things, back then: provocation. ‘Are we fucking, is that your question?’

Her father choked on his tea, laid his mug back down on the table. Martha counted score: one – nil. She watched him with interest and faux-nonchalance as he caught his breath but to his credit, he didn’t back down. Simply caught her gaze again and smiled. Every time she spoke to her mum, almost, she managed to shock her, rile her up into having another shouting match, or both. Her father was never quite so easily swayed. ‘Yes, that is the question, yes,’ he smiled. Martha bit her lip.

The tables turned and she found herself being the awkward one, all of a sudden. She looked down at her hands, didn’t really want to have the talk, but also didn’t want to lie to him. She never lied to him. ‘I don’t need your warnings, Dad,’ she settled on, glancing back up at him. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Well, that’s good, but let me be the judge of that, pumpkin,’ he said, sipping his tea again. He had this way of breaking through the defences she’d put up, back then, a way to show that he’d always care for her, no matter what. ‘So, are you?’ he challenged. Martha looked back down at her hands before letting her eyes drift back up to him.

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re using –’

The outrage was back almost as quickly as it had left her and: ‘Of course, we’re using condoms,’ she said, adamant. ‘Do you think I’m stupid enough to get pregnant with some kid I don’t want, like Maureen out there –’

She was having a phase, back then, during which she’d decided to call her mother by her first name, mostly because she’d noticed it irritated her more than anything else. Her father cut the discussion short, again. ‘That’s enough, Martha,’ he countered. ‘Your mother and I wanted you more than anything in the world –’

‘Well, she’s clearly regretting that now, isn’t she?’

Dad sighed, then, she remembers. Didn’t push the matter but after Martha admitted that yes, there had been a couple times when the condom had broken, he gave her her first pill prescription right there and then, wrote it down on his pad with a pen that was lying around the kitchen table. Martha knew he’d given it some serious thought, though, because he barely ever agreed to prescribe her anything, didn’t even want to write doctors’ notes to get her out of PE. You can’t think straight when it’s your family, he’d always say.

(Ironically, by that point, he’d been self-medicating his Alzheimer’s for over a year, but of course, Martha only found out about that much later on.)

‘You don’t forget it, ever, okay?’ he’d said, back then, and well, Martha guesses, now, finishing her beer while Clive pays their bill, it would probably have done her some good to remember that particular lesson, a few years ago.

She catches Clive’s glance, then, updates him on her last few days in Bolton. “I gave a guest lecture at the University, here, couple weeks ago,” she observes, catches his glance. He raises an eyebrow at her, intrigued. “That was fun.”

Clive nods, smiles, playfully teases. “Oh, professor Costello, then,” he grins and, given her complicated history with teaching, it sounds oddly alright, Martha guesses.

.

Her mother phones, later on. They’re walking down the street and Martha stops in her tracks, steps away to take the call. The tone is passive-aggressive on the other end, as usual, and: “You didn’t come home last night,” is the first thing that her mother notes, letting the awkward pause that follows sink in.

All the good girls go to hell, too, Martha thinks, so: “No,” she agrees. Never said she would, as a matter of fact, said the exact opposite, actually, when her mother caught her wrist in the stairs, yesterday, after Clive got to Bolton and Martha went back into the house to pick up an overnight bag.

‘Who’s that?’  

‘Clive.’

‘Clive?’

‘I’m going out,’ Martha responded and twenty years later, felt the utmost satisfaction at being able to get away with it. ‘Don’t wait up.’

“Well, where are you, then?” her mother asks, now, and God, there’s a reason why Martha left home at eighteen.

“Manchester.”

“And, do you intend to come home?”

“Yes. Tonight. Mum, I’m thirty-ni–”

“I worry, alright?” her mother snaps, interrupting. “You’re my daughter and frankly, you showed up on my doorstep, so I get to worry. You don’t have children, you wouldn’t understand,” she says and okay, that’s not a very fair argument, Martha thinks. “I mean, no offense but you haven’t been doing all that great, lately, so forgive me for asking questions when you go off with some man I don’t know and don’t come home in the morning, and also to be honest with you, you haven’t really evidenced the best taste in men in the past so –”

Martha doesn’t get to hear the rest of her mother’s wonderful demonstration because she takes the phone away from her ear and lets it rant into the air for a few more seconds until she finally hears silence at the other end of the line. There’s a smile on her face, though, when she speaks, thinks she does understand, actually, thinks – “I’m fine, Mum,” she says, her glance leaving her feet to settle on Clive as she sees him typing on his phone a few yards away. He stops, though, when he hears her speak again, doesn’t look at her. She hopes that’s a good thing. “I’m happy,” she adds, closing her eyes.

Moments later, she’s kissing Clive’s lips and he takes her hand back in his, asks: “What did she want?” The ring on her finger brushes against his palm. Martha feels it all the time, now.

“She thought you’d kidnapped me.” A joke. Clive laughs, next to her.

.

Later, they’re in Costa ordering coffee when it happens. It is the thought that crosses her mind uninvited, the pointed question her mother asked last week, the thing that smells like a rose and that Martha doesn’t want to name.

They’re are standing at the till. She hands out her debit card to pay for an Americano while Clive tells her a story she doesn’t really pay attention to, looks to the end of the bar to her right. There is a young woman standing there, leaning against the counter; she’s holding her kid’s hand – early-thirties, long golden hair that cascades down her back; she’s objectively beautiful, the kind of beautiful that only exists in books, Martha thinks, like she doesn’t even know she is.

In fairness to him, Clive only throws her a look because of Martha’s staring. He wouldn’t even have glanced, otherwise, and the rational part of her brain knows that. Yet, Martha feels her jaw clench, her eyes roll at him, and when he smiles, gives her arm a reassuring light squeeze, she hates herself for being so petty. She can’t be jealous. You’re not allowed to be jealous when you’re the one who doesn’t want to belong to someone else.

As time passes, though (Martha moves to the side to let the bloke behind them order, her coffee warm in her hand), Clive’s gaze drifts. Martha keeps staring at the woman but his look focuses on the kid. The little one smiles up at him. The mum hasn’t noticed them but he certainly has – kids always see that kind of thing – and because it’s weird and unusual to have two people staring at you from across the room when you’re about four, pulls his tongue at them. Martha looks away, slightly awkward – can’t even really pinpoint why she was staring - but Clive laughs next to her and, to Martha’s surprise, pulls a face at the kid, too.

The little one laughs. Naturally, wholeheartedly, like children do. Pulls his tongue again.

Alerted by the sound of laughter, this time, the mother sees her little boy misbehave, looks at him, Martha and Clive. “Oh, no, don’t do that!” she says, chastising her son, then: “Sorry,” to the adults in front of her, apologetic.

Martha opens her mouth but Clive is quicker, catches the woman’s gaze. “Oh, no, that’s all right,” he says, smiles that dazzling smile of his; Martha rolls her eyes again – Really, Clive? Yet, instead of talking to the mum, Clive takes a step forward and squats down to face the kid, grinning.

It reminds Martha of a conversation they had, years and years ago. They were still so young; one of her clients had had to bring her son to a con, the boy creating a bloody racket in Chambers. Clive took him aside, played with and distracted him, taught the little one how to make a house of cards stand on its own. Martha smiled at him across the table at the pub, later, and: ‘You’re really good with kids,’ she observed, over a glass of red.

Her tone was neutral, devoid of any awkwardness – what would have - could have - made this conversation tense, years later, hadn’t happened, yet. ‘One of the added benefits of having lots of nieces and nephews,’ he joked, smiled back. 

Martha eyed him across the table and saw there was something else in his look. She was twenty-nine; he’d turned thirty, and her friend Jo had just had her first girl. ‘Do you want kids?’ Martha asked, catching his look. She could still ask, back then, ask in the abstract, with nothing that related to her, particularly. Clive laughed, amused, knee bumping against hers. That fleeting moment in time, Martha knows, was the height of whatever they were, all flirt and innuendos.

‘Is that a proposition? he quipped. She burst out laughing, shook her head at him and was ironic, back then - it’s painful to look back at, now.

‘Yeah, of course, Clive,’ she spoke, between sips of wine. ‘I’d want nothing more than to have a kid with you.’ He laughed, too, sat back in his chair. She waited a bit, just eyeing him: I’m bringing you home, tonight, she thought to herself, although she wasn’t sure he knew that, yet. ‘Seriously, though?’ she chased, curious, later on.

Clive gave it some serious thought, finishing his beer. Shrugged, nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he settled on and Martha could tell that he was honest, as much as he could be. ‘Not now. And with the right person,’ he added, catching her gaze. ‘But yeah, I think so.’

She watches him interact with the little boy in Costa, now, and reminds herself that conversations like these are the ones they can never, ever have, now.

The kid looks at Clive with wide-open eyes, a mixture of fear at having done something his mum didn’t want him to do and interest at Clive. “Hey, what’s your name?” Clive asks, then.

“Leo.”

“Well, hi, Leo, I’m Clive,” he adds, takes the kid’s hand in his and shakes it lightly before letting go. Leo stays silent for a bit, unmoving. “So, you like pulling faces, huh? Can you do that one?” he says and pulls another face, twisting his mouth and framing his eyes with his fingers, like glasses.

Leo lets out a franc, childish, belly laugh and this time, so does his mum, smiling at Clive, first, then at Martha. Martha finds herself smiling back as the boy attempts the face in return; it’s funny, really, the way his little hands attempt to mimic Clive’s. Not a full success, yet, so his professor starts giving him tips to make it better, showing him how to make perfect circles with his thumbs and forefingers.

Leo’s mum throws an amused look at Martha over the boys’ heads (a look that says: that one’s a keeper, she knows) and maybe that’s what, in the end, makes the boy finally notice Martha. He stares over Clive’s shoulder for a long while, not really paying attention to what Clive is saying, anymore. Confused, Clive turns around and sees what – who – the kid is looking at, smiles.

“Leo, this is Martha,” he says and the kid smiles, shy, looks to the floor.

“Hello.”

“Hi Leo,” Martha says, cocking her head to the side to see him better, smiling but staying put, standing a step behind Clive, just waving her hand at him. She has a cup of coffee between her fingers, steals a sip of hot liquid. Has always been a bit uncomfortable around the children of strangers, to tell the truth.

Leo finally dares to glance up and his eyes fall on Clive again, the mother smiling behind him. The boy looks at Clive, corner of his mouth twisting with something he’s not sure is okay to say and sighs. “She’s very pretty,” Leo tells Clive as though Clive is the only one who can hear and all three adults suddenly burst out laughing, the boy going red in the cheeks. The mother opens her mouth to reprimand but Clive shakes his head, grins. 

“Yeah, she is,” he agrees, nodding and smiling at the kid, his voice reassuring. “She’s very smart, too,” he adds and the kid’s glance travels from him to Martha, who smiles and shakes her head, then back to Clive.

The boy frowns, pouts. “Smarter than you?” he asks, looking up at Clive with question marks in his eyes.

Clive turns slightly and throws Martha a glance before he speaks again, nodding at Leo. “Loads,” he confirms, Leo’s mother smiling up.

The boy looks very impressed at that, glance drifting from Clive to Martha back and forth a few times before finally, a thought seems to occur to him. “Can she do the faces too?” he asks and makes everyone laugh, again.

When their laughter quiets down, Martha hears his mum say: “Okay, I think that’s it, Leo,” smiling, amicable, but firm, pulling on the little boy’s hand. Leo nods, and: “say goodbye, Leo,” she adds, so he does, because that’s what Mum told him to do. He looks like he wishes he could play pulling faces with them a bit longer but shrugs as his mother thanks the both of them and walks to the front door. Clive stands back up next to Martha, leans against the counter to reach for his coffee.

He looks at her and the grin on his face turns into something else, subtle; she sees it in his eyes when his glance falls onto hers; she clears her throat a bit. “I didn’t know you could pull so many faces,” Martha says, lightly, because it’s the first thought that occurs to her that she actually can voice, the others buried deep in an area of her brain she absolutely does not want to venture in.

“One of my many hidden talents,” Clive jokes, sipping his coffee and moving closer to her, slowly inching them towards the exit. They step out onto the street and as Martha walks next to him, nursing coffee in her hands, she realises that she can’t stop looking at him, throwing sideway glances and wondering what the hell is going on in her head right now. Clive notices, after a while, throws her an amused look and asks: “What?” between two gulps of hot liquid.

“It’s back,” she says, fidgets.

“What?”

She steals a glance in his direction, smiles. “Your charm,” Martha answers, because it’s true, because it’s scary, because when she thinks about them, sometimes, she thinks about them sitting on her couch that night and it –

Clive chuckles, takes her hand in his as they walk. “Well, I’m glad,” he says, oblivious – or very good at pretending to be – and she bites her lip, shakes her head, shakes the thoughts that must not be named out of there.

.

They eat dinner a couple of streets away from his hotel, the kind of place that sells fifteen quid burgers that come with salad as a side unless you specify otherwise. Clive offers to drive her home; she says she’s fine taking the train (it’s already 10 PM and he’s got to drive back to London, after all) so they argue back and forth for a good five minutes until Martha caves, figures that if he really wants to, he might as well. That and she sort of wants him to, in the back of her mind, doesn’t really want him to leave.

They get to Bolton and the house is dark, her parents’ street only shaded by a couple of lampposts. Out the window, she sees Jamie, standing at the corner typing away on his phone. There’s Mrs Robinson, too, angrily dragging her dog away from the neighbour’s petunias and the flickering lights behind a few people’s curtains. She wonders what all of this must look like to Clive.      

“There you are,” he says, with his hand on her knee to nudge her out of her thoughts.

She looks into his eyes and smiles. “Do you want to come in?”

.

The fact of the matter is: the enterprise entails a little bit more negotiation that she had initially thought. First, there’s Jamie, outside. She walks over to him and holds his gaze, tells Clive to wait in front of the house. She whispers when she speaks to the kid; he seems amused. “You don’t touch that one either,” Martha instructs, pointing at Clive’s car, because, well, certain things are actually better being expressly stated.

“But, Miss,” Jamie rolls his eyes, frowning. Yeah, Martha thinks to herself, I know you alright. “A nice one like that –”

“You heard me,” she insists and he concedes, shrugs.

“Who’s he, anyway?”

Martha laughs, shakes her head at him. “That is absolutely none of your business, Jamie,” she tells him.

And: “What was that about?” Clive asks, later, when she walks back. She pulls him past the front gate of the house, gestures to be quiet with a finger to her lips before she opens the door. Her mum is probably asleep, by now.

“Just trust me,” she whispers, pushing the door open. The fact that she’s just kept his car from getting nicked is one of those things that are actually better left unsaid.

.

Next, there’s the staircase. The steps creak; they both hold back giggles until they get to her bedroom, don’t dare turning the lights on. Martha decides they’re safer sitting on the roof so that her mum really won’t be able to hear them; Clive acts very dramatic when she makes him step over the gap between the two buildings; she laughs and calls him a wuss. They drink tea and okay-just-a-notch wine that turns into a bottle emptied between the both of them and Clive’s certainly not going anywhere, now. When he asks her to stay over, he does so by tiptoeing around the topic, claiming that he can’t drive, claiming that she’ll have to stay awake with him until he sobers up. Martha offers him shelter, promising her that mum will be long gone to work by the time they wake up tomorrow and kisses him in the dead of night.

There are no stars on cloudy evenings but Martha’s always been a city girl anyway so her eyes follow the curve of the roads, their street lamps and tiny windows, the headlights of cars heading home. They sit with a blanket thrown over the both of them; she warms herself up off the heat of Clive’s body. They’re quiet, talk and fight the urge to sleep with stories and soft chuckles whispered in each other’s ears. From their vantage point, Martha shows him the street on which her mum works, the corner shop where she had her first job, the house where her best friend used to live when she was six years old and the school across the road. Her thumb is constantly playing with the ring he gave her, last night, dancing around her finger as if to check it’s still there, not going anywhere. Martha also tells him about her school and the skirt of her uniform, how she got sent home more than once on the grounds that it rode three quarters up her thigh.

Clive laughs, shakes his head. They’re drinking her mother’s wine straight from the bottle, white, the glass almost glows in the dark. “Bit of teenage rebellion?” Clive asks, smiling next to her.

“Something like that, yeah,” she agrees.

Clive catches her gaze; the bottle makes a quiet clink sound when he lays it on the ground. “I wish I’d known you back then,” he admits, sits back on his palms, looks at the rooftops in front of them.

Oh, God, Martha laughs, looking up at him, imagining the kind of teenager he probably was, the kind of people he was probably friends with. Yes, she may be a bit prejudiced and judgmental, here, but after all, he did go to Harrow. She hums, shaking her head. “Um, no, you don’t,” she declares, a playful twinkle in her eyes.

Clive frowns, asks: “Why not?”

“Irreconcilable differences.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Martha pauses when she speaks next, trying to explain, looking for the right words. “I don’t know, I was just –” She takes a moment to think. “Insufferable, really. Dyed my hair black, boys, drinking, skipping school, coming home in the middle of the night: the whole works,” she adds, sees Clive smile in the dark. “Rowing with my parents, teachers, terrible grades – frankly, I don’t really know why the school never expelled me, I barely even showed up,” she admits as an afterthought.

Clive sets a half-amused, half-disbelieving look on her, a large mocking grin and an eyebrow raised. “You dyed your hair black? Please tell me there is photographic evidence of this.”

Martha laughs, drinking, shakes her head. “There is. Which you’re never, ever going to see,” she smirks, setting the bottle on the floor. There is something calming, peaceful about the sound of Clive’s laugh.  

“I’ll make it my life’s mission to,” he jokes, taking the bottle in his hand and holding it up, making a promise, or a toast.

In her head, Martha remembers one late night in Chambers, when she admitted to having gotten arrested once before, for smashing a beer bottle onto a police car, protesting a wrongful arrest. Clive had laughed so hard tea came out of his nose and that explains so much, he’d said as she rolled her eyes. Well, now, Martha guesses, telling him tales of her younger self, he knows the full extent of her teenage rebel career.

“Once,” she adds, grinning at him. “I even told my dad I wasn’t going to partake in tests at school anymore, because they weren’t fair to people who weren’t good at taking tests,” she laughs.

A loud chuckle escapes Clive’s mouth; it covers the hoot of a car down the street. “Flawless logic, Marth.”

“Oh, shut up,” she smiles, taking another swig of their wine.

The moon hovers behind the clouds; there’s a white glow to it. Martha watches time pass by, one of those quiet moments where evenings don’t really need to end. It’s a while before Clive speaks again; he’s looking at the city below them, shadows over his face. “What happened, then?” he wonders, catches her gaze. “I mean, you went to university, you must have –”

“Gotten my shit together?” she suggests. He laughs.  

“I wouldn’t have put it like that, but -”

“Dad got sick,” she says. Leans into him and speaks matter-of-factly, and yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. In a nutshell. That part is harder to tell, somehow, she has to force the words out of her mouth to keep telling him the truth. “He wanted me to go to university,” she shrugs. Generally, there’s something about these things that she’d rather only admit in the dark, when they can’t quite see the look on each other’s faces. She can avoid his gaze, too. “I don’t know if he ever really understood I did, but –”

And, there’s no appropriate way to end that sentence, really, just a loose sense of hope. A sense that maybe, maybe he did, maybe he was proud of her, and maybe Billy’s proud of them, too. Martha feels Clive’s arm circle around her, touches the side of her head to his, closes her eyes against the night breeze. Mechanically, after a while, she disentangles herself from him and fishes out for her pack of cigarettes, reaching behind her for the lighter and ashtray, out of their hiding place under a brick. Clive arcs an intrigued eyebrow at her, looks at the brick, the hiding place, the mint gums next to it, then back to her.

She smiles, shrugs, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I only smoke out here,” Martha explains, glancing back at the house. “She doesn’t know.”

“Your mum?” There’s an incredulous tone in his voice, a curious and disbelieving glance.

“What? You never hide anything from your parents?”

And she hears Clive laugh, sees him shrug, knows he’s about to crack a joke but -

“Sean was there, you know?” she whispers, honest and almost out of the blue, opens her eyes to look into Clive’s. Her fingers fidget with the pack: open, closed, open; she sets it down on the floor. “He was – no matter how shit things were at home, there was always a space for me at his place, and laughter, and beers to get numb on,” she breathes, shaking her head softly. “I was the one who failed him, not the other way around.”

And in truth, she doesn’t know if it’s the resigned tone in her voice, or the honesty with which she’s finally, finally, ready to talk to him about this, but Clive doesn’t look angry like he usually does when she mentions Sean. Doesn’t roll his eyes or sigh or even urge her on, just waits until she speaks, his hand softly massaging her shoulder. Martha smiles, sad, sighs.

“I –” she starts, stops, tries to explains. “When Dad got sick and I finally, well – I grew up and made it out of that phase. I tried to take Sean with me, you know? I tried to push him to go back to school, tried to make plans for us in Manchester, tried everything I could so that he’d make it out of the shithole he grew up in. I just,” she says, pauses. “Couldn’t, I guess.”

“Is that why you took the case?”

And: “Yes,” she admits. It’s almost like breathing again, telling Clive, admitting to feelings that she can’t control. Martha’s not in love with Sean, hasn’t been for decades on end, but guilt is another insidious drive for making terrible judgment calls. It’s her fault, she thinks, and it’s always been her fault, and now he’s in prison because of her and not one day goes by where she doesn’t think she might not be able to pull herself out of bed the next morning because of it.

Clive doesn’t say it’s not her fault. She knows he doesn’t think it is, from the way he looks at her, breathes next to her but he knows her. Knows her enough to know that whatever he says won’t make a difference. Instead, he smiles, sad, asks, curious: “What made you break it up? In the end?”

Martha rolls her eyes. Remembers: the parties and the drinks, and the loosening of tongues. “Alyssa Manfield,” she says, the name leaving her mouth like an insult. Clive cocks an eyebrow at her.  “It was a few months before I went off to uni. She went around the place telling everybody they were sleeping together.”

“Ah, that’s -”

“To be honest, I don’t think they were,” Martha counters, before Clive can even go on and get back into a favourite hobby of his: pointing out to her how much of a jerk Sean is. “He denied it,” she adds and sees Clive roll his eyes, gently shoves his shoulder. “It wasn’t the point, anyway.” Martha looks down at her hands, hugging her knees close to her chest. “It just felt like one more thing I didn’t want to deal with,” she admits. Wasn’t brave, didn’t do the right thing, didn’t hang on as much as she could have, should have. She was tired, she remembers, wanted to run away.

They stay silent for a while and she feels his lips against her temple again, rough with five o’clock turned midnight shadow. She thinks of the day that they’ve spent together, of her cheeks that hurt from laughing too much, thinks of dart games and pulling faces, teenage angst, reaches out for his hand in the dark. Clive’s thumb caresses her skin, softly, fingers locking with his. The ring he gave her is still there and just like him, it’s not going away any time soon.

“Dad lost his medical licence,” she confesses, a bit later. That’s one thing that she’s never told Clive before. Martha’s look is directed in front of her when she speaks, their shoulders touching; she doesn’t dare cross Clive’s gaze.

Her family were never well-off, she explains, but they were never poor, either. In Bolton, they had a nice house with a fence and a mortgage, and while her classmates might have financially struggled, Martha never really did. Her dad had a good situation, as they would say, and her mum didn’t even have to work. He one of a few local GPs, practiced at a clinic until one night, when she was sixteen, Martha overheard her parents argue in dark.

She found out her father was dying through whispered arguments in their living room.

‘I don’t understand how you could do this to us, Dennis,’ her mother accused, arms crossed over her chest and tears in her voice. He knew. They didn’t. He figured out what was happening with the memories that were slipping away from his brain and yet, he continued to go to work, to practice. It was only a matter of time before the clinic found out and their small, idyllic, three-people family unit suddenly began to drown under legal fees and board hearings. Her parents had to liquidate all their savings to keep a roof over Martha’s head. Her grades only improved back then because she stopped sleeping, found out that work could keep her brain busy until morning. In the end, they took her father’s licence but didn’t charge him for malpractice. By the time the case reached the CPS, he wouldn’t even have understood what negligence was.  

Martha’s mother stuck by him. It was never a question. She loved him. They both did. One night, Martha remembers, he’d needed to use the bathroom, couldn’t remember where it was, didn’t want to admit it. Martha was supposed to be in bed; she hid behind the banister at the top of the stairs to watch her parents. He’d soiled himself, her mum was helping him out of his clothes. ‘Maureen,’ he said, looked straight into Martha’s mother’s eyes. ‘You didn’t marry me for this. Please take Mar. Have a nice life.’

Martha’s mother shook her head, then, spoke in that no-nonsense tone of hers. ‘Dennis, don’t be ridiculous.’

When her father passed away, Clive laid in Martha’s bed staring at the ceiling and she sat up on the sheets, smoked a cigarette. There’s always been something a little melancholic about cigarettes after sex, as far as she’s concerned. Her eyes studied Clive, his bare chest and the muscles in his arms, narrow hips, the Calvin Klein branding of his underwear.

He caught her gaze, then. Had her bedside table lamp on; it cast a low glow over his face. Martha’s eyes were full of tears that had nothing to do with him so he rose up to meet her, took the half-smoked cigarette from her fingers and killed it in the ashtray. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered, and kissed the pain away.

She looks up at him, now, and the words are out of her mouth before she can really filter them. She’s never told anyone about this. Has never really even told herself about this. Spent hours on Google in the middle of the night, pretended nothing had happened in the morning. “It’s genetic, you know?” she says, now, looking down to the floor, to her fingers, anywhere but him. “Alzheimer’s, I mean.”

Before they found out, Martha remembers her dad summoning her to his practice, one afternoon. He’d had a call from school about some argument she’d gotten herself into. It was winter, she recalls, flu season, she’d looked around at the people in the waiting room, thought to herself she was going to get sick.

‘Things are going to have to change, Martha, you need to understand,’ he’d said but she hadn’t, not back then, had made a nonsensical comment about her mum and how she was trying to control her life, had stormed out of his office like she always did. Looking back, now, she wonders how he felt, wonders if he wished to be like her, head deep in the sand for as long as she possibly could.

“I looked it up,” she goes on, hesitates. “Early onset, close family member – it’s a fifty/fifty chance,” she says, glance drifting to the city lights. Drifting anywhere but Clive. “I’m not really good with fifty/fifty chances.”

A look of understanding washes over Clive’s face; she sees it, even in the dark, the wheels clicking into place. She knows what he’s thinking, probably, and: is that why –? Why a lot of things, really.

“There’s a test,” she whispers, after a beat. “They run your DNA and tell you if you have it. Or likely to have it. Something.”

“Do you?”

Martha bites her lip, makes herself look up at him. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know,” she breathes, honest. For years, she didn’t even consider it, because what would be the point, anyway. Clive opens his mouth, almost nods before - “Then, I got pregnant,” she goes on, glancing down, unable to maintain eye contact. “And I thought – Well, I don’t know what I thought exactly. I only got the results in my pigeonhole two weeks after the baby was gone, so I didn’t look,” she breathes. “Threw the envelope in my handbag and that was that, really.”

Clive is silent for a long time, after she speaks. Like he’s taking it in, like a lot of things are starting to make sense, in his brain, just from what she told him. Suddenly, though, a thought occurs to him; she sees it in his look and braces for impact. “Don’t tell me –” he breathes. She looks away. “Do you still have it?”

Her look finds her hands, the floor, the ring, anywhere but his face. She doesn’t want to admit it, starts: “I –” stops.

“For God’s sake,” Clive sighs, genuinely stunned. “Don’t tell me you’ve been dragging it around for two years?”

And, look, she wants to tell him. It didn’t happen like that, wasn’t planned, she didn’t mean for it to happen, it just –

“Marth, that’s insane,” he presses. “You either open it or you don’t; you don’t torture yourself with it for –”

“It’s not that fucking simple, it’s –” she snaps, stops, breathes, explains. “Sometimes, I take it out and I want to open it, but then I think what’s the point? Because I’ve always told myself I wouldn’t be like him. And, I know the symptoms, Clive, I know what it’s like, and the day I know I have it…”

“Marth -”

“Oh, don’t go all Patrick Stevens on me,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like, you haven’t seen –” she wants to talk about her father and what it was like, and what – No, she decides, she doesn’t really want to talk about it. It’s her problem, not Clive’s. “I’m sorry,” she apologises, quick, decisive. She didn’t mean to snap at him, didn’t mean to - “I shouldn’t –”

“Stop,” Clive says, his voice cutting her off, decisive. Martha’s startled; it not only makes her stop talking but also finally makes her dare look up at him. “Can I look?” he asks, and it sounds so obvious to him. She feels fear at the pit of her stomach; it hadn’t even occurred to her that he would want to, ever, that he would –

She’s said too much, she thinks. Doesn’t know if she wants him to know, doesn’t know if he should –

“I won’t tell you if you don’t want to know,” he promises, staring into her eyes. “But I do.”

And, as she looks at Clive, then, Martha suddenly remembers him when he found out about Billy, and the days that followed. She hated knowing. Hated keeping that secret, hated knowing what was coming and being unable to prevent it. It felt like watching her father forget her, forget her mum, watching water slip past her fingers. She looks at Clive and realises that Clive, though, would have wanted to know. He’s always been like that, likes facts and preparing for things when she doesn’t, when she prefers to watch the water flow rather than try and catch it. Maybe he should know, too, because she –

She stops there, mid-thought, wouldn’t know how to say it, anyway, wouldn’t know the words, so she nods, finally, reaching to fish the letter out for him. It’s battered, has been sleeping in her bag under piles of files and general mess for three years, the confidential notice on the front almost faded out. Clive turns it around, goes to open it but before he can, the thought comes back to her like something she needs to say, something that keeps her heart from slowing down, something –

She grabs his hand, stops him. “Whatever’s in there,” she starts, trails off.

She used to think that she didn’t want to end up like her father, forgetting everything that had ever made him him, too long before he forgot how to breathe. Martha used to think that when the time came, when she’d forget to pick up the milk up one too many times, she’d make that decision for herself, with a glass of red and sleeping pills, because she deserves better than that. Tonight, though, she looks at Clive and thinks something else, for the first since her dad got diagnosed: she thinks she doesn’t want anyone else to go through what her mum went through. It doesn’t change the end game, doesn’t change her decision, but it means something, she realises, admits it to herself. Breathes.

Her voice is quiet, arms hugging her frame tight, wrapped in the blanket, looking at the little city lights dancing ahead of them. Martha can feel Clive’s body heat next to hers, can’t really see his face in the dark. If he asks, she thinks, she’ll say. “Don’t let me forget this, okay?” she asks, softly. “Don’t let me forget tonight.”

And it’s like she’s standing outside of a building, after dinner and a movie, drinks, with a boy that’s about to kiss her and her heart pounding in her chest. Clive sighs, but not a heavy sigh, more of a smiling sigh, the kind of sigh that makes her turn and look at him. “Why?” he asks.

And it’s funny, really, because she doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s the way he looks at her when she’s happy, or when she’s angry, or maybe it’s the ring that he gave her and the expectations he didn’t have, the quiet, honest words that he uttered, or the fact that he showed up in her life at all. Yeah, perhaps, it’s just because she met him, at Shoe Lane, one September morning, a long time ago. Why is something she’s been wondering about for far too long, every time she looks at him, every time she feels like she’s falling and he throws out a hand, catches her and tells her to breathe.

“I don’t want to ever forget you,” she admits.

Clive stops mid-movement, then, mid-breath, his whole body still, sitting next to her. He frowns, but also smiles. “That will never, ever happen, Martha Costello,” he tells her, like that’s the one thing he’s always been certain of. Martha gives a really quiet laugh, the first one in a long time.  

Quickly, his mouth is on hers, strong and confident, stubble grazing her lips. His hand finds her lower back, weight pushing her down onto the blanket under them; soon enough his palms are everywhere, on her skin under her shirt and in her hair, her hands curving behind his neck. The roof is hard against her back but she can’t bring herself to care; it reminds her of last time, when they were drenched in rain, reminds her of them.

She briefly wonders how far this is going to get when his mouth leaves hers to find her neck - in fairness, this roof has probably seen worse and it’s not like anyone can see them, so –

He stops, though, a few seconds later, remains close, above her, staring straight into her eyes. “I love you,” he simply says, promises: “I’m not going anywhere.” And his words are not just words, anymore, or fleeting feelings escaping him whenever he finds it convenient. No: “I love you,” he says and for the first time in her life, Martha crosses his gaze and knows, just knows that it’s true.

.

The envelope makes its way back between his fingers, eventually, after the last drops of their wine are drunk, too. Clive swallows, forefinger slipping and slowly ripping the paper open. Martha bites her lip, doesn’t want to look at him, but can’t bring herself to look away.

She sees him go through the words without showing anything, just reads for an agonising thirty seconds or so, his face blank when he finally glances up at her.

“You sure you don’t want to know?” he asks, staring back at her, poker face on – if the envelope didn’t say ‘personal and confidential’ on it, she thinks he could have been reading her grocery list, for all she knows.

Somehow, it’s comforting, knowing that he doesn’t seem to have run for the hills just yet. “Yeah,” she says, briefly shutting her eyes before nodding, certain. “I don’t.”

So, he nods, too, smiles, and doesn’t tell her. Never, ever, tells her until it’s time, until she asks, years and years later. For now, he takes her lighter from off the floor and brings it close to the papers. “So, you don’t have to carry it around, anymore, alright?” he says and Martha nods, watches as the letter turn into ash, slowly, script burnt and undecipherable, falling to the ground.

The flame dies, eventually, and she looks up at him. Clive takes her hand in his.

“Come on,” he speaks in the dark, starting to sit up. She’s a bit cold, now, they’re sitting on top of the blanket rather than under it and – “Let’s go to bed.”

“Wait.”

It is a tricky, manipulative thing, really. It is a fleeting thought caressing the back of her mind at regular intervals, when her mum mentions it, or when Clive pulls faces at a little boy in a café, the kind of thing that is never truly there but never leaves, like a non-committal shrug as a response to an important question. She’d never thought about it again, really, or about it again with him, at least, just as an abstract what if in her head. They fished out the letter, though, tonight, and it came back to her mind as the reason why she’d done the test in the first place. It’s wrong, it’s stupid, was never even here in the first place, was never meant to – “Marth?” Clive utters, low and distant, looks at her.

She only now realises that her hand is resting on her stomach because he tries to take it in his, smiling, trying to get her to talk to him and tell him what’s going on inside her head and: “I –” she says, stops. Clive’s hand rests on top of hers for a split second before she relents and takes it, shakes her head.

She sees something in his look, something that tells her he knows, tells her that -  

“Never mind,” Martha says, her glance catching his for the shortest of times; she shakes her head to herself and smiles. “Come on,” she adds. “Let’s go to bed.”

Clive nods as he stands, helps her up. “All right,” he says. “Let’s step over that gap again and try not to die –” he whines, looking at the edge of the building and the window of her bedroom on the other side. Martha rolls her eyes.

“Wuss,” she says, again, shaking her head at him.

.

There’s always been something about being away from home, Martha thinks. It’s Manchester and Bolton, now, was Nottingham a few years ago; she feels bolder, more confident, like enveloped in a cocoon. Like nothing can ever happen, when they’re away.

Back then, she was reckless. Led him inside her hotel room (kisses, moans, lips hungry and warm against his skin) – ‘I thought you didn’t want to do this, anymore,’ he teased and she rolled her eyes at him, spoke.

‘We’re not in London, it’s different.’

Later, he whispered in her ear: ‘Shit, Marth. Condom?’

And the worst thing is: she did have one. It had been living inside her wallet for a while – probably wasn’t in the best shape - but they could have tried, at least, tried to avoid it. But condoms were messy, and she never really liked them, and she trusted him, and: ‘I’m on the pill,’ she said. It was true, technically (she would never have lied to him about that), but she’d taken it late the day before, and they’d been out to dinner when her alarm rang today, and what were the chances, anyway?

She took him in her hand and guided him inside her, moaned into his mouth when he kissed her, rough and unapologetic. His look locked with hers; Clive smiled against her skin. ‘I missed this,’ he whispered in her ear.

“I missed this,” he says, now, too, lying in bed next to her. Back then, she was reckless, and tonight, maybe she is, too. Her childhood bed isn’t a twin but it’s definitely smaller than her bed at home so they have to squeeze in together; she spoons into him and smiles, his other hand trailing in her hair, then down her arm. “I love you,” he whispers, from behind her. She lets out a short laugh, bites her lip. The thing is, he says that and no matter how lightly she pretends to take it, her heart still skips a beat every time he does.

He’s playing piano against her hip again, fingers toying with the lace on the side of her pants: it’s frankly distracting. “My mother’s downstairs, Clive,” she says, another chuckle escaping her lips. “Say that all you want, but I’m not having sex with you.”

“Oh, now, you know,” he whispers in her ear with a smile in his voice. “That’s very unfortunate.’”

“Shut up. I’m sleeping,” she says, puffs out a laugh and rolls her eyes, thinks she hears him laugh, too.

.

The thing is, though, she doesn’t sleep. Stays awake and stares at the poster of Ian Curtis on the wall and the other thing is: she doesn’t think Clive sleeps, either.

When his hand moves down from her hip and follows the curves of her skin, at first, she wants to believe that he is. Listens to his breaths in her ear and almost convinces herself of their regularity, almost convinces herself that he doesn’t know what she’s thinking, what she was thinking just minutes before, outside on the roof, or that at the very least, if he does, he won’t say. It has crept back in her mind at the speed of light; she feels one of Clive’s fingers tap once, twice over her stomach. Martha becomes acutely aware of the rhythm of her own breaths, of the way his hand follows the movement of her body against his.

It’s a really long time before he speaks, remains still to the point where eventually, she does wonder if he has indeed fallen asleep, until she hears his voice, a murmur in her ear. “Marth?”

“Yeah?”

Her own voice is detached but she’s pretty sure he knows she’s holding her breath against his hand; she makes a conscious effort to let go, a long sigh escaping her mouth. Her belly moves in rhythm: in and out, she thinks. In and out. “What you were going to say –”

“Forget it,” she says, quick, too quick, really. His hand stops drawing circles against the skin of her stomach and just rests there, for a while, just –

She doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want Clive to think about it, really. Doesn’t want to address the elephant in the room, the thoughts that crowded her brain this afternoon when she saw him at Costa with that kid, little Leo, or the way he laughed, or the way Clive smiled, too. Frankly, he’s learnt enough things about her and about what’s going on in her head for a lifetime, tonight. Except: “Marth?” he repeats, again, and as he goes on, she closes her eyes, holds her breath and this time, doesn’t think she cares if he knows. “I would want to, you know?” he adds, quiet, like he, also, barely dares. “If you wanted to.”

And the last time his hand rested on her stomach without being on the way to another part of her body was years ago, she remembers. It was dark outside and he was a bit drunk in her apartment and they were young, felt so, so young when she looks at them now and how naïve and unaware they were, couldn’t think that anything could ever go wrong.

She held his gaze as he stood at the bottom of the stairs down to her flat, remnants of the drizzling rain falling onto the floor of her hallway when he stepped past the threshold. Slid slid him a beer, settling next to him on the couch, nursing tea in her hands, thigh bumping against his:

‘This is going to sound stupid but can I –’ he finally asked after skirting around the topic for a good half hour, feigning interest in Chambers gossip and rambling about cases, his gaze hovering over her skin. It made her laugh, back then, scoot closer to him as she lifted her shirt, the touch of his fingers slightly cold and wet from his drink. Clive laid his palm flat against her skin and discretely, she observed his reaction. With clothes on, she wasn’t showing yet, barely looked like she'd put on any weight, but lying down like this, her skin bare, it was another story. There was a bump, there, a very real bump, something that even she had been unable to ignore, lately. Quietly, his eyes set on hers, she remembers, thumb tracing patterns on her skin. He asked if it moved, yet, and wasn't it strange, to have another person growing inside you.

Martha stays silent in the dark, now, turning thoughts around in her head. She wants this to be real, doesn’t want this to be real, wants –

Quickly, suddenly, she turns around to face him, finds his eyes wide-open in front of her, bites her lip. “Clive,” she says, in a breath. “I’m not even sure –”

He smiles. They’re lying so close to each other that she feels his breaths on her skin. “Would be pretty weird if either of us was, don’t you think?”

“It’s not –” she starts, sighs. “Even if we try again –”

“We weren’t really trying the first time.”

It annoys her that he makes her smile and yet he does; she shakes her head and pretends to ignore him. “I’m thirty-nine years old.”

That is one tangible objection she feels is very relevant and yet, he just shrugs, barely blinks. “So?” he says. “We try. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it’s not for us. I’m personally in favour of lots of trying –”

Martha smiles and rolls her eyes, bites her lip. “It’s not funny, Clive –”

“Of course, it is,” he counters, and suddenly he sounds serious, gaze narrowing in on her. She doesn’t dare to move. “It’s us, Marth,” he adds, again, like last night, like it means something.

She opens her mouth but –

“You and me,” he continues, instead. “Me making you laugh and you making me laugh, and us screaming at each other, sometimes, and making up most of the time,” he smiles. “And you being bloody insufferable, sometimes, and me being insufferable most of the time, and it’s –”

When he trails off, she’s forgotten the words she could have rehearsed, forgotten to roll her eyes or shake her head, just knows that if she doesn’t let her thoughts out now, she might never do so. “I told you last night, we’re not together, I don’t -”

And while there’s a flicker of hurt on Clive’s face, he doesn’t give up, just points out the obvious. “That didn’t stop you from keeping it last time,” he observes. “And, I mean,” he continues. “We’ve known each other for fifteen years, Marth, I don’t think we’re ever going to stop this,” he gestures between the both of them. “One way or another. I mean, what’s the longest we’ve ever spent without talking?”

A month, she concedes, in her brain. The month that’s just passed, the one she spent here in Bolton, sleeping in this bed and pondering over her life choices. Not an experience she ever intends to repeat.

Clive breathes and for the first time in a while, she does, too. “Marth,” he says, pauses, his thumb against her cheek. “There’s no one else I’d like to argue with, about schools and football games attendance, and Christmas presents. Not one else but you,” he says and trails off again, looks into her eyes. “You’re the one,” he shrugs, non-committal, like it’s nothing more than water being wet. “I want a baby with you. If that’s what you want, too.”

And three years ago, when he laid his hand on her stomach, the bloody thing mostly made her feel nauseous, frankly, so that's what she told him, admitted that much with a laugh and told him the story of how she had almost thrown up on the police misconduct panel a few weeks before. She honestly thought she’d stopped breathing when he leaned down, his breath caressing her skin and said: ‘Hey baby,’ spoken softly. ‘Be nice to Mummy.’ And Mummy, she heard, looked up at him and: Daddy, she thought, right before he kissed her, a quick peck, across her lips, like something free and secret, something that didn’t bind them to anything. ‘We're going to be okay,’ he added, breaking away, his forehead resting against hers.

She looks up at him now and the words are natural, out of her mouth, like they’ve always been, lying there under the surface, waiting for their time to shine. “I do,” she says, nods. “I want that, too.”

And two years ago, when he visited her that night, she remembers crossing his gaze and thinking to herself that they were going to be parents, one day.

Chapter Text

ix.

She’s always been hopeless at hoping, always coped badly with coping. I never know when she’s joking; she never lets anyone in.

Catch in the Dark – Passenger

The sad thing, though, the thing that kind of breaks her heart a bit, is that it doesn’t happen. Clive said: ‘If it doesn’t happen, it’s not for us,’ so maybe, it just isn’t for them.

They don’t talk about it.

Martha doesn’t want him to think she’s insecure, doesn’t want to make this more of a committed thing than it is, which is an odd phrase, considering the conversation they’ve had, considering the ring on her finger, but then they’ve been known to operate in reverse when it comes to whatever the fuck this is so, as Clive graciously pointed out, having a child before they actually get serious wouldn’t exactly be a first.

She told him when she went off the pill, the next day, when they stopped in the car park beneath his building and her alarm rang on her phone. It was like she needed to confirm what had been said the night before, as if she wasn’t necessarily sure that words whispered in the dark counted for anything. ‘Okay,’ he just said, catching her gaze.

‘Okay?’

‘Okay,’ he smiled, nodded, standing against his car with his arms crossed as she stood against hers.

Bloody, fucking, ‘okay’, then, she thought, convinced that this was the worst idea they’d ever had. Pretty convinced, too, that it wouldn’t happen.

So, it doesn’t.

Other things happen, though.

.

The first thing – the main thing – is that she goes back to work. It’s a little over three months after Martha’s thirty-ninth birthday when she meets Charlotte. By that point, the lecturing stint with Evershed has gradually become a regular one and she’s been going back and forth between London and Manchester a few times a month, making enough money with that and academic articles to pay her mortgage. Martha talks to students about a job she used to love and tells herself that it’s enough, that that’s what freedom must look like. It’s depressing how clean her flat has been since she quit working, and how stocked her fridge is.

They’re sitting at a hotel bar, sometime mid-November when Jo asks: “Aren’t you bored?”

She asks because she’s had four glasses of wine and it hits Martha like it should, like a drunken slap in the face, makes her freeze for a short instant. “I’m fine,” she says.

“It just doesn’t sound like you, the whole not working thing,” Jo laughs, before liquid slides down her throat again. 

In her words, Jo’s always had the brutality of people whose daily actions don’t bear many consequences, of people for whom it’s accumulation that counts. Accumulation of good deeds and thoughtful words whispered to loved ones will grant her an outstanding marriage and first-class children, people around her who will be careful and caring, just like she wants them to be. Jo doesn’t know about life-changing earthquakes and trying to stick the edges back together with pieces of tape.

Plenty of women stop working, Martha thinks. There is no rational reason for which she should be an exception. “You stopped working,” she points out to Jo, looking at her hands. The counter of the bar is a dark shade of amber; Martha plays with the diamond of her ring with her thumb (Jo’s reaction when she first saw it looked like her eyes had fallen off her eyeballs in shock), rolling it towards the underside of her finger, then back up again.

Jo laughs. “I’ve three kids to take care of and worked in a call centre scamming poor old couples into buying overpriced leather couches. It’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Please.”

‘You think you can get them off,’ Clive told Martha, one night, putting on his coat. It was years ago, she was working, probably going to pull an all-nighter; she’d turned him down for drinks at The Crown. ‘In the end, you’re just feeding them hope.’

The truth is, back then, she thought hope was better than nothing. The truth is, too: Jo’s right, somehow. Martha’s bored. As hard as it may be to believe, it does get old, after a while, getting up whenever she likes. She reads novels and magazines. She finishes the books on her nightstand and actually makes medical appointments. She catches up on a decade of films she hasn’t had time to see, discovers this thing called Netflix that develops into an actual addiction on certain cold, weekday afternoons. She lies on her couch with tea and a blanket wrapped over her body and makes it through anything remotely watchable in a few weeks. Then, it’s back to square one.

Clive doesn’t say anything. Clive goes to work and comes back, and invites himself over to ‘watch something,’ which is apparently what the kids call it these days. He makes her laugh.  She misses him when he’s not there. A part of her still can’t quite fathom why he seems willing to stick around. Despite what he said when they were over in Manchester, Martha still kind of expected him to walk away, to get sick of the limbo they’re in, but somehow, she wakes up in the morning and he’s still there, trying to get inside her pants before heading off to work.

Ever since she moved back to London, she’s started to feel a bit like a housewife.

Isn’t sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing, to be honest.

.

Sometimes, she misses Billy. It’s an ache in her heart that gradually fades in the winter mist, but never truly goes away. Sometimes, things happen that she wishes she could tell him about. Sometimes, things happen that she’s happy he won’t see. Sometimes, it’s just the memories that pop inside her brain, uninvited, out of reach, inches away from the tips of her fingers. She wishes there were other things to think about.

“You should get a dog,” Clive suggests, once. Her glance drifts away from the telly and onto his face.

“I’m too busy,” Martha answers automatically, because it’s been her default answer to – well, everything for the past decade or so.

Clive laughs, is just enough of a bad boy when he counters: “Doing what, exactly?”

She glares at him. Does not get a dog.

.

The thing is, sometimes, she also misses Chambers. Misses watching Bethany and Jake circle around like a couple of peacocks eyeing each other up. Misses the rush of adrenaline of late returns and court dates, misses trying to wrap her brain around complicated things. For the lack of something better, she gets fascinated with biology, cycles, and pointless articles that dictate what she should or shouldn’t eat (Trying to Conceive? The headline reads, Five Changes You Should Make to Your Diet).

Sometimes, she feels like a fish trapped in a fucking tank.

But then sometimes, Clive gets a difficult case and the amount of times that he claims he doesn’t care becomes inversely proportional to how much he actually does. Martha sits on the couch next to him and tells herself she’s glad not to be walking in his shoes. She genuinely wonders why anyone in their right mind would ever want to do this job.

She wonders if frankly she ever was, in her right mind, that is.

(Sean still writes to her. Almost weekly. She throws the letters away without opening them.

Guesses that at least, that way, she knows he’s keeping his promise. He’s still alive. )

.

September eventually blends into October, and as expected, October blends into November. The days get shorter; she’s glad the dog never became a thing when the temperatures get below freezing and the idea of making unnecessary journeys outside becomes unfathomable.

As is universally agreed amongst human beings, November is the shittiest month of the year, so even the round trip to Manchester gets boring, after a while. They have her running a couple of workshops on criminal legal practice and a class on Evidence, which in and of itself is kind of a dull subject, and even if her lectures are generally a full house, Martha’s not quite sure why. Evershed laughs at her. “You’re honest, you say it like it is. That’s why they like you.”

She shrugs, thinks: maybe? “That’s what I always liked about you,” she tells him.

He smiles, a hand on her shoulder. “You’re too kind.”

Clive, though, she can tell, is happy. It makes her happy. Throughout the years that she’s been alive on this planet, Martha Costello had become quite well acquainted with the concept of schadenfreude (the joy that one derives from the misfortune of others), but not so much with the opposite concept: feeling cheery just because someone else is. The new Head of Chambers role fits him like a glove, he thrives in the networking and people-pleasing aspects of it; it’s an odd but beautiful thing to witness, when he comes home. Clive looks much less miserable than he used to, though maybe, Martha muses, she’s got a bit of a hand in that as well.

“It’s Harriet; it’s the only thing,” he says, one night. He’s dicing red peppers at her kitchen table. Martha frowns, toys with the glass of wine in her hand.

“I thought things had settled a bit?” she says, phrased like a question. He looks up at her.

“They have,” he insists, stops cutting the peppers and turns on the stove. He’s found pans and utensils in her kitchen, over the past few months, items that Martha didn’t even know she owned. “It’s just, I don’t know,” he admits, shrugging. “I just don’t really like her, I guess.”

Martha does burst out laughing at that, stands up to go lay her glass down on the counter. “She’s not a very likable person, Clive,” she observes, smirking. He looks up, raises an eyebrow at her.

“Is that a hint of jealousy I’m hearing?” Martha smiles, shakes her head.

“Schadenfreude,” she corrects, answers his curious look by walking in behind him and wrapping her arms around his hips, making him turn. Clive grins when she kisses his lips, claims him as hers. “The satisfaction that I get from her misfortune,” she explains, laughs in his arms.

“Satisfaction, eh?” he whispers, teasing.

The Stones play in Martha Costello’s head when she snogs the boy who stands in her kitchen until smoke starts to escape from the pan he’s put on the stove and: “Stop, Clive, the fire alarm’s about to go off,” she tells him.

November isn’t always the shittiest month of the year, she thinks.

.

Inevitably, November also blends into December. Early, a few weeks before Christmas. Little lights frame the streets, snow brown and mushy at the edges of the pavement. It’s a secret (her secret) but she’s always liked that time of year. Not Christmas itself but the efforts put into the windows of shops, the air brutally cold against her cheeks, scarf wrapped in three perfect circles around her neck, the churros sold at the markets. Clive brings a tree home (well, to her flat) one evening, a small but large thing that loses its thorns everywhere for the following three weeks and takes up at least a fourth of her living room.

“Trees are for children, Clive,” she tells him, with a half-hearted eye-roll. She looks at the tree, looks at him and the mischievous smile on his lips and grins, too, against her better judgement.

“Well, isn’t that what you said last time we argued?” he laughs from the other side of the room, wiping his hands on his pants after adjusting the tree in the corner. “‘You’re a fucking child!’”

Martha rolls her eyes again and steps around the kitchen counter, sets her empty tea mug on the sink. The last time they argued, actually, started like that, with a mug he hand-washed when it could easily have gone into the dishwasher. It was stupid, she knows, but she was bored and frustrated, so she argued a pointless point and made him sleep on the couch, banging the door on her way to the bedroom.

(Well, she guesses she did tell him to go back to his bloody flat, but he never did. The couch was his fault, then, not hers).

She doesn’t say anything, now, just shrugs in a way that says I was right, and turns around to look at the tree. It’s green, nude; at least, she thinks, it’s a plant in her apartment that she doesn’t have to worry about keeping alive.

“Well, I don’t have anything to decorate it,” she tells him, walking closer. He sits on the arm of the couch, the tree to their right; she stands in front of him.

The last time they argued, she had been a couple of days late, that morning. Had made herself wait those couple of days, just to be sure, before going into the shop and buying a test. She got home, walked into the bathroom to pee on the stick, just to discover blood on her underwear.

Clive doesn’t know about this. They’re operating under an unspoken tell-me-if-anything-happens agreement for it, so she keeps all that doesn’t happen to herself, like the amount of articles she reads online and the app that she’s almost ashamed to have downloaded on her phone to track things. She knows she shouldn’t, knows it’s never going to happen, knows she shouldn’t hope this much, but then she’s the world’s greatest optimist, apparently, and there’s not much else to channel her hopes in. 

Never go to bed angry, her mother used to say, so maybe that’s why Martha couldn’t sleep, that night, tossed and turned for an hour or two before throwing in the towel, deciding that if she wasn’t even going doze off, she might as well watch another episode of that bloody series on Netflix and figure out who Tommy chooses between May and Grace (she’s with May, on that one, business before love, always). Foolishly, perhaps, she thought Clive had left after their argument (again, ‘go back to your bloody flat!’ she’d insisted), so it was a bit unexpected to hear the sound of his light snores when she entered the living room. Martha doesn’t know why, exactly, but there, in the middle of the night, she padded across the room to sit on the coffee table, watch him sleep for a good half-hour. She played with her ring a bit, turning it around her finger: another bad habit she’s built, whenever she feels unsure as to what comes next.

‘Are you going to stay here all night?’ Clive’s voice suddenly rang in the quiet of her flat, nudging her out of her thoughts. ‘‘Cause frankly it’s a bit weird,’ he added, eyes shut and his voice groggy; she wondered how long he’d been lying like this for, awake and silent, how long it’d taken him to notice she was there.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, honestly, guessed that yes, it may have seemed weird, true, but she didn’t really want to move. After a bit, she watched him shift, his eyes still closed, visibly trying to fall back asleep. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking at him.

His eyes opened at that, grey in the dark, immediately catching her gaze. ‘Did I hear that right?’ he spoke and beneath the sleepiness she could almost hear a smirk in his words. ‘Did the great Martha Costello Q.C. actually apologise?’

She smiled back, nodded, guessed she had, as weird as it may have seemed.

‘Say that again,’ he said. A light chuckle escaped her lips.

‘Don’t push your luck.’

Clive smiled, quiet; Martha felt his hand on hers, fingers intertwined. It was warmer, had been under the blankets for a while. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, his gaze focused on her face.

She thought of telling him. Saying: I had my period today. Saying: I’m scared, and: What if this is a mistake? The thing was: the few times they’d ever talked about it, they’d always had a tendency to deflect, to talk like people whose actions don’t bear consequences. Clive had brought it up a few times – still does, sometimes – but mostly as an excuse to have sex (as if they needed any). He did so when they got back to London, that Sunday in September and when she thinks back, it’s the only real conversation they’ve ever had about this. They were in bed and she froze for a moment, bit her lip and said: ‘Are we ready, though?’

He laughed, in her ear, hand travelling up her side. ‘Absolutely not.’ His lips were close to her skin; she could feel his breaths on there. ‘So, good thing it takes time…’ he added, voice flirty and low. ‘And dedication…’ His mouth trailed kisses down the line of her jaw, her neck to her collarbone. She pressed her hips against his; he shifted on top of her a bit.

‘What if it happens and we’re not ready?’ she whispered and he sighed, looking down at her.

‘Then, we’ll get ready. Like last time.’

She raised an eyebrow at him as he moved up again, his face inches from hers. ‘We were anything but ready last time.’

He laughed, briefly caught her lips. ‘Look, I’m not saying the argument’s flawless, but are we debating or fucking, here?’

She moved her hand from the small of his back to the space between them, feeling him beneath the fabric of his underwear; his breath caught in his throat. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, biting her lip. ‘You tell me.’

So, yeah, a few months later, she didn’t say when he asked: ‘What’s going on?’ because what could she say, anyway? They had agreed, after all, that if it doesn’t happen, it’s not for us, and there’s not much either of them can do about it. She’s not the kind of woman who’s always wanted children, the kind of person to turn to doctors and medical procedures or adoption obstacle courses. It’s not for her, not for them, because she knows that as much as she thinks about it, every month, a part of her is also relieved, in the back of her mind. If they can barely talk about it, they’re clearly not ready, and she just needs something else to obsess about.

The night after they argued, his hand kept caressing hers until she spoke, quietly, biting her lip. ‘Do you think I should go back to work?’ she asked, looking down at him as he lay on the couch.

Clive let out a soft chuckle, an eyebrow raised at her that said: So, that’s what it’s about? and sat up, slowly, his back against the cushions as she sat facing him on the coffee table. He caught her gaze and her other hand in his. ‘I’m not suicidal, Marth. I’m never going to tell you what to do as far as work goes,’ he said, smiled. ‘I’ve tried that before and we both know how it ended.’

She smiled, then, shook her head and later, took him back to bed. She stays silent now, too, even if Christmas trees really are for children and it hurts, a bit, that there’s nothing else that hits her mind. Her thoughts stop haunting her, though, when things escalate like they always do, on the couch, until they lose their balance and fall off on the floor. They’re half-naked, limbs intertwined, her back hurts but she can’t stop laughing. Clive pushes the coffee table away and rolls over next to her, arms behind his head. “Let’s just stay down here, shall we?” he says and Martha laughs, rolls over to sit on top of him, this time, kissing him with a large grin on her face. “I love you,” he says, when they part.

It’s still new, that. He doesn’t say it all the time and she’s kind of thankful for it because she’s not quite sure what to do about it. Most of the time, he speaks the words in the middle of the night, when he thinks she’s asleep, and she doesn’t answer, like another secret she keeps. It’s not that she doesn’t feel it, per se (she doesn’t think about it, doesn’t want to think about it), and what she feels is ambivalent, really, because she loves him until she remembers how much it hurt when they were at each other’s throats and she’s suddenly not so sure that these feelings she has are such a great idea, anymore. They bicker over stupid things all the time and have tiny, little rows like the last one but they have yet to properly, bloodily argue and Martha’s not sure she wants to be there when that happens.

She kisses him, again, a bit later, hips sinking to meet his as he pushes into her; she bites his lip by accident but he doesn’t seem to care. It’s a while before they move, after they’re done, bodies laying between the couch and the coffee table, on the floor of her flat. Clive’s hand finds Martha’s discarded bra next to him, throws it at the tree. One of the straps catches in the branches; she raises an amused eyebrow at him.

“There,” he says. “Decorated.”

Maybe Tommy Shelby chooses Grace, the optimist in her whispers, maybe that’s what love is about.

.

It’s another couple of weeks until she’s waiting for him, sitting on a bench outside courtroom six, and that’s when it happens. Martha never finds out whether the meeting’s a coincidence, or if Clive had anything to do with it. She doesn’t ask, has always been a believer in fate and good timing, anyway. 

Usually, if she has to meet up with him after court, she waits outside in the street. There, she can smoke and remain reasonably anonymous, avoid people who might know her. Today is different, though. Today, she’s trying very hard to look like someone who didn’t try five different outfits in the morning, actually wishes she could stand outside with a fag but she’s washed and combed her hair earlier, put on perfume and make-up to try and make a good impression – we all want to be better people than we are – so, cigarettes are out of the question. 

Today, they’re meeting his parents for lunch.

Now, she’s agreed to this about a week ago, when he mentioned lunch as they sat on her couch, a Chelsea game on mute in the background, her feet resting on his lap, fingers casually tracing lines up her calf. They had ended up buying fairy lights for the tree; they cast a low, blue shade across the room. ‘Do you want to come?’ Clive asked, strategically faking indifference, drawing patterns up and down her skin.

‘Meet your parents?’ And, with those words, Martha’s heartbeat had spiked, panic alarm bells ringing loud in her ears. On the outside she didn’t move, pretending to barely look up from her book.

‘Have lunch,’ he amended, glancing sideways, finally catching her gaze.

‘With your parents.’

‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘With my parents. You’re not meeting them, you’ve already met my parents,’ he added, matter-of-factly, trying to gauge her reaction.

Well, she guessed that she had, in a very literal sense of the word, they had met and said: ‘Hi,’ the day Clive and she were called to the bar, and Martha had indeed very well overheard when Clive’s mother had hushed: ‘Ah, it’s good that they take people like that in, now,’ when he’d mentioned that yes, Martha really was from Bolton.

‘Plus,’ Clive added, caressing her skin. ‘I’ve met your mum, now. It’s time for you to return the favour, don’t you think?’

And: Oh God, Martha cringed at the memory. It was at her parent’s house, the day after they had made this crazy, big decision to engage in an adventure that entailed maybe having a child together, one day. Clive had been in the shower upstairs, when the unimaginable occurred. Martha was finishing her breakfast, setting her coffee mug at the top of the dishwasher when suddenly, the front door opened. She was in the entrance hall in a flash, found her mum with arms full of grocery bags in the doorway. ‘Oh, so you did come home,’ her mother observed but Martha barely registered the dig, heart beating fast in her chest. Clive is upstairs, the alarm bells went on in her head. And, let’s hope he stays there, because this was not the plan.

‘I thought you were working today,’ Martha observed, desperately tried to fake a casual tone in her voice, in an attempt to both garner information and appear innocuous. She’d told Clive that her mum would be in work, this morning, thought -

‘I told you fifteen times, Mar. I took the day off, Roy is coming to help me move some of the boxes to his,’ she explained, dropping Tesco bags to the floor and shutting the door behind her. It would have been great, Martha suddenly mused, if she’d spent a little bit more time listening to her mother instead of worrying about Clive, over the past few days. ‘Why, did you have other plans?’ Maureen asked and Martha was suddenly reminded of the fact that she’d promised to pack up the shit in her room days ago, except, well, that hadn’t been her main preoccupation, lately, and –

‘No, I’m just surprised, I guess I –’

Forgot, is what Martha meant to say, there. Her mum and she stood in the entrance hall, facing the stairs, and she suddenly got interrupted by loud, running sounds cascading down the steps. Her mother looked up just when Clive stopped, halfway down the last staircase, clearly oblivious to what he’d just walked into, shouted: ‘Marth, have you seen my –’

He froze. Martha’s mother stayed silent, look falling onto him, then Martha, then back to Clive. Martha noted that he was wearing a towel around his waist (good) and nothing else (bad), hair wet and dripping onto the carpet. Maureen raised an eyebrow at her daughter and shot Martha a look who avoided it like the plague. ‘Who’s he?’ her mother asked and if Martha wasn’t mistaken, there was a humorous tone in her voice behind the pseudo-offended one.

‘Clive,’ she said.

Clive, who, instead of taking his cue to leave, actually, seemed to wake up from his trance, at the sound of his name. What are you thinking? Martha shot him a look when she saw him walk down the last couple of steps, extending his hand. ‘Clive, Clive Reader,’ he said. Fucking James Bond as well, Martha thought to herself. His fingers were wet so he attempted to dry his hand on the towel, moved it a bit (it did not fall, thank Lord). ‘Hi, Mrs. Costello, I –’ he started speaking to her mum.

Martha’s truly not sure what he was thinking. Maybe because Martha’s mother is a woman and Clive tends to be able to charm anything that walks, he thought being posh, lovely, and endearing might get him out of this situation but – truth be told, it did not work. Martha’s mum very obviously ignored his extended hand and refocused her look on her daughter.

‘He stayed the night,’ Martha settled when her mother raised an eyebrow, decided to address the obvious. ‘I thought you’d be working.’

Clive glanced up at her immediately, sharp, tried to stop her from saying anything else with a look. He clearly didn’t know her mother. ‘Marth, I think –’

Maureen’s look suddenly left her daughter’s, to settle back on Clive. Unexpectedly, it turned from hard and judgmental to likable and kind, as soon as their stares locked. How fucking unfair, Martha thought. I get a dressing-down and he gets – ‘Oh, don’t you worry, dear,’ Maureen said, voice all sweet and mellow. Even Clive frowned at the change in her tone. ‘You’re far from the first one –’

Martha coughed and almost choked, caught Clive’s gaze and – that fucking asshole, she thought. There was a chuckle, right there, she saw it almost come out of his mouth before she glared daggers at him and he stifled it instead. ‘Mum!’ Martha warned, call me a slut while you’re at it.

‘What, honey?’ her mother directed at her, arms crossed. ‘I’m just stating the facts, here,’ she said, turned back towards Clive and finally extended her hand; he gladly took it, all smiles and charm (you fucking traitor, Martha swore under her breath). Her mother went all nice and thoughtful with him: ‘Call me Maureen, please, I insist.’ Martha was this far from taking off and just leaving the both of them the fuck alone when she heard her mother say: ‘Did you know, she even got herself pregnant a few years ago? Wouldn’t tell me who –’

‘Oh-kay, that’s enough,’ Martha heard herself say, then, covering their voices – both her mother and Clive suddenly stopped talking and turned to her. Clive was grinning (as though very close to letting her mother know just how much he did indeed know about that, yes); it was fucking infuriating. ‘Clive, upstairs,’ Martha pointed, in a tone that left no room for negotiation. ‘Wait for me there. And, Mum,’ she added, after he’d turned the corner. ‘If you have a point to make –’

.

Later, Clive smiled when Martha opened the door to her room. He was lying on her childhood bed in his jeans, bare-chested. Martha took one look at him and rolled her eyes. ‘Nice woman, your mother,’ he observed.

Martha stood in front of him with her hands on her hips long enough for him to decide it was time to get up. Clive smiled when she said: ‘Oh, you took her by surprise. Wait to see what she’s capable of when she’s prepared.’

He chuckled but must have sensed the tension in Martha’s body, back then, because he stepped closer to her, removed her hands from her hips and took them in his, held them for a bit before letting go. He dropped a kiss to her lips; she found herself leaning in to his touch, his hand on the small of her back, pulling her close. When Clive backed away, she was probably relaxed enough that he thought it alright to crack a joke in her ear. ‘So, you got yourself pregnant?’ he smirked; she rolled her eyes at him.

‘Ha-ha,’ Martha said, shaking her head and smiling, almost against her will. ‘Very funny.’

.

So, when he mentioned lunch with his parents, months later, Martha pursed her lips, desperately looking for a way out. Her schedule wasn’t exactly busy, these days, and classes in Manchester had stopped due to exams and the holidays, so there went her exit road. ‘Your mum liked me,’ he smirked, as though that was an argument to be made. ‘My parents are going to like you, too.’

And: That’s not fair, though, she thought. Her mum liked him because he’s charming, and also moved furniture for her, which is quite a high bar to meet, as far as Martha’s concerned. Her mother’s boyfriend, Roy, and she, were in and out of the house all day, had hired a van to move things around; Clive was very happy to make himself very useful. Martha rolled her eyes. Roy loved him. Strangely enough, it was as though Martha has earned a hundred points in the man’s credibility matrix overnight, simply by being accompanied by someone like Clive. Roy talked to him to ask where everything went, despite the fact that Martha did know where everything went, and the posh-bloke-down-there didn’t have a clue. She was infuriated and couldn’t even complain to Clive; he’d never seen Roy before, so wouldn’t know any different.

After the van drove off around eleven, Martha found Clive in her bedroom upstairs. He was sitting on the side of the bed, leg lifted up on a cardboard box in the middle of the room. She considered going to sit next to him but decided against it, didn’t think she’d be able to get back up.

‘How’s your knee?’

He laughed, shook his head. ‘It’s seen better days.’

‘We can head back to London now, if you want.’ (Anything to get out of this place and not have to interact with either her mother or Roy for another while, Martha thought.)

‘Oh no,’ Clive laughed, like he knew exactly what she was on about. Martha let out an almost imperceptible sigh. ‘If moving furniture is the price to pay to get on your mum’s good side, I’m all for it,’ he joked. She rolled her eyes. ‘Now, you’re just mad because you know it’s working.’

Martha crossed her arms over her chest, glared. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she announced, pretending to ignore him. She smiled, though, with her back to him.

.

So, fast forward a few months and that’s how she gets here, waiting outside a bloody courtroom, reading yet another news article on her phone while attempting to focus on something other than what his parents might think of her. Clive met her mum so Martha had to agree to meet his, and he seems so certain that his parents are going to like her – at this point, they’d be happy with pretty much anyone if it means I’ve settled down, Marth, he said (was that supposed to make her feel better or worse, she’s not sure. Is that what they did? Settle down? Martha thought they’d explicitly agreed to the opposite of that, actually) – that she has to resist the urge to point out to him everything that could actually go very, very wrong, there. She’s going to keep a low profile, she’s decided, only speak when asked a question, stay polite, don’t touch on work or politics, make sure she doesn’t get a piece of salad or lipstick on her teeth and hopefully, it won’t be too much of a disaster.

She feels like she’s going in for her silk interview again.

Clive’s running late – that’s fine; they actually banked on that, told his parents to meet at one when he was supposed to be out of court by noon – and as Martha waits on the bench outside court, a young woman comes to sit next to her. She’s not young-young but definitely younger, late-twenties or early-thirties probably, hair long and a dark shade of brown, bangs falling straight just over her brows. Her eyes are a slightly lighter shade, somewhere between chocolate and dark green, skin pale, face round, smile large and genuine.

There’s plenty of sitting space on another bench, a couple steps away, right by the door of the courtroom, so Martha has the very distinct impression that something is off from the beginning, without really knowing why.

“I’m Charlotte,” the woman says, unprompted. Her voice rings somewhat high but she also speaks faster, sounds more confident than her looks suggest. “I really like your dress.”

Instinctively, Martha’s gaze drifts down to her lap, where the hem of her dress shows. It’s black, plain, a little bit boring – she kept going back and forth between that and a suit this morning but figured Clive’s parents would already know she stopped working, so showing up in a blouse and one of her pencil skirts would seem a bit weird.

“Thanks,” Martha just says, followed by an awkward pause, doesn’t really know what to add. She can’t honestly reciprocate the compliment (Charlotte is wearing some sort of flashy flowery shirt with orange pants – it fits her, oddly, but Martha thinks it would be going a bit far to say she likes the outfit), doesn’t know what the woman wants, exactly, but feels like it would a bit rude not to respond. Martha decides to return the introduction, at least. “I’m Ma –” she starts, but gets interrupted.

“I know who you are,” Charlotte says, turning towards her.

Okay, then, Martha thinks. Well, she guesses she is sitting outside court, after all, and although she hasn’t been working for the last six months, people still know who she is. It’s kind of why she usually prefers to stand outside the building or wait for Clive at the Prêt across the street with earphones in her ears so that people aren’t tempted to start chatting, wondering why they haven’t seen her around Middle Temple in a while.

“I always wished I had this perfect plain black dress, you know? The kind of thing that classy people wear to fancy restaurants or something,” Charlotte continues, still unprompted, her look traveling up and down Martha’s form for a second before she adds: “Well, it seems that you’ve found it.”

The first thought that occurs to Martha, then, is that it’s the dress she wore to Billy’s wake. She actually thought about that this morning when she considered putting it on, wondered if Clive would remember, wondered if maybe she should change into something else. She tried, but then she’d already decided against the suits, and the blue dress she’d bought for their date was too summer-y, and the other grey dress had creases on it which she didn’t have time to iron out – she figured Clive’s parents would be the kind of people who would notice creases – so in the end, she changed back into the black dress. Awkward, Martha just tries to clarify – “I’m sorry, what –” but as she opens her mouth again, the door to the courtroom does, too.

Little groups of people start making their way out in tiny packs like sweets out of a box of tic-tacs. People from the gallery are first, followed by the defence – she thinks she recognises the guy from somewhere – and Clive, with Nicola from the CPS looking down at her notes on a legal pad, deep in conversation. He absentmindedly throws a sideway glance at Martha, looks slightly surprised (pleasantly, though) to see her inside the building and mouths: five minutes, before he focuses back on whatever Nicola is saying. On second thought, though, as Nicola keeps talking and looking at her notes, Clive throws another glance in Martha’s direction and this time, spots Charlotte. His expression changes, Martha notices; smile turning into a frown, he throws a questioning look at her and she, in turn, throws the same look at Charlotte.

Slowly, Charlotte gets up from the bench, leaving a piece of paper next to her, in small, neat handwriting. She smiles, says: “This is my number. I’d love to grab coffee sometime, if you fancy.”

.

So: “Did you sleep with her?” Martha asks Clive, a few minutes later, on the way to the restaurant, because the entire interaction was so odd that at least it would make sense, in some way, would explain the look they threw each other and the invitation for coffee.

Clive bursts out laughing, loud; they cross a street, the chill in the air hitting Martha’s cheeks. “She’s gay,” he says, the cold driving fog out of his mouth, as they step back onto the pavement.

Okay, Martha thinks, although that’s not really an answer to her question but does cut short of the only plausible explanation she’d found for the encounter.

“That’s Charlotte Day, Marth,” Clive clarifies and: Of course, Martha fucking thinks, because she should have known. It’s been years since she’s last seen the woman, always been too busy to attend bar social events and –

Charlotte Day is the daughter of Daniel and Catherine Day. Father’s a judge, mother’s one of the first women who ever made Head of Chambers in a London set. Charlotte went into clerking for one of the biggest defence sets in London.

Clive winks at Martha, speaks again: “You’re being headhunted.”

She rolls her eyes at him, shakes her head. Ridiculous, she almost says.

.

Surprisingly, though, lunch with his parents doesn’t go as bad as Martha thought it would. They’re older than her mum (she’d say late sixties, early seventies) but reasonably active. Clive’s mother talks a lot, Martha finds out, which makes the conversation quite easy-going, with chats about their last trip to New York and the play they’ve seen there, and Clive’s brother’s new job and the flock of grand-children Clive’s three siblings seem to have brought to the family. Martha drinks a glass of red – enough to signal she’s not pregnant, not enough to actually get tipsy – and Clive’s father asks a bit about her family (no, she’s never been married; no, she doesn’t have children), and siblings, and what her father did, and when she moved to London, and whether she’d ever consider moving back. Clive throws her a glance, at that; she purses her lips.

“I’ve been here almost twenty years, now. That’s where my life is.”

She feels Clive’s hand squeeze her knee under the table. Thinks it’s a bit weird but when they all walk out of the restaurant and go their separate ways, Martha guesses maybe his parents don’t dislike her too much, after all.

.

Now, about Charlotte: sure, Martha rolls her eyes at Clive when he jokes that she’s being headhunted,  but still, the encounter keeps replaying in her head for the next week or so (so often, in fact, that she actually forgets to worry about whether or not she’s going to get pregnant one day). So, on December 22^nd, just shy of Christmas, Martha caves in and calls. It’s probably nothing, she insists, she’s just curious, is all. 

The coffee shop where Charlotte offers to meet that afternoon at has a bunch of elaborate explanations handwritten on blackboards as to what kinds of beans they grind and what kind of water they use, and a sign on the window at the entrance that reads no, we don’t have the Wi-Fi password. Talk to each other. The people sitting at the tables look like they’re attempting to make a statement Martha’s not sure she fully understands.

Charlotte takes the lid off her cup, blows on the hot liquid a bit. “Look,” Martha starts, briefly glancing at the couple to their right, then back at her. “I’m professionally flattered by the attention but –”

“You’ve called me here to tell me you’re not interested.”

“Yes,” she confirms. Charlotte took off her bonnet when they got in, a couple of snowflakes still perched at the top of her fringe. She seems to ponder over Martha’s words for a minute, looking at her coffee mug, before catching her look.

“Okay, try that,” Charlotte pauses, challenges. “Look at me and tell me you’re not bored.”

Well, respectfully, I am, Martha thinks, if she’s honest with herself, but respectfully, I can’t do it again. “I –”

“Tell me Martha Costello Q.C. is happy taking the train up to Manchester a few times a month to go teach an hour-long class on what it’s like to practice criminal law at the London bar while chilling on her sofa the rest of the time and is not even a little bored,” Charlotte cuts in, sets her coffee down, untouched. “Tell me that and I’ll go.”

The coffee is too hot, it almost burns the tip of Martha’s tongue when she tries it. She sets it down, warming her hands against the cup. They’re sitting too close to the door, people coming in and out bringing in the winter chill with them. Martha shivers, opens her mouth, closes it. “I haven’t practiced in six months,” she settles, after a bit. Charlotte frowns.

“So? You’ve forgotten the difference between murder and manslaughter?”

“That’s not what I meant, I –” Martha starts, stops, thinks she’s going to get interrupted again, isn’t. In the end, she can’t recall what she wanted to say.

Charlotte looks down for a moment, purses her lips, hesitating. “Look,” she breathes, sitting up. “I don’t want to replace Billy Lamb. I could never replace Billy Lamb, even if I wanted to; I’m frankly not as good as he was. But I understand clerking. I’m not an office manager,” she pauses, bites down her lip, seems to consider her words. “I also don’t take bribes or put my barristers in a position where they have to cover for me.”

Well, okay, there we are, Martha thinks. True: the girl isn’t exactly basking in diplomatic skills but at least she’s done her research, is clear and honest (which is also something to be appreciated, at the end of the day). Martha waits a bit, playing with the ring on her finger. Down, up, down, up, down; Billy, she thinks. “Look, again,” she sighs. “I appreciate the attention but –”

“You don’t prosecute,” Charlotte starts speaking, counting on her fingers at the same time. “You don’t do rape, and you have a very self-sabotaging tendency to get overexcited by cases that don’t pay a cent,” she continues; Martha breathes out something between a sigh and a laugh, looks down. “You took the McBride case because he was a friend and he fucked you over. Well, shit happens,” she stresses. Martha’s jaw clenches, about to speak when: “Tell me I’m wrong,” Charlotte adds and, regretfully, Martha’s mouth stays shut. “See, it’s my job to know my barristers -” the girl adds, reconsiders. “Well, potential barristers, I guess.”

And, so, that’s it, Martha thinks. She knew what this was from the beginning, knew that before she even walked in, but Clive was right: she is being headhunted. And yes, it is flattering, somehow, but then as soon as she met Charlotte, the other day, as soon as the thought of going back to work became a possibility, however remote, rather than a mere fantasy, she started thinking back to the nights spent boring over centuries-old precedents and dreaming of Sean’s head hanging off a noose like Johnny Foster’s, and concluded that well, she’s not ready.

Yet: “With all due respect,” Martha starts, breathes. “Even if I were interested – and that’s a big if,” she insists. “You’re not the one voting me into Chambers, peers are.”

It’s true, and after everything that happened, she can’t quite fathom how any set in the world would actually vote her in. True, it’s a technicality, but a pretty big one, by all standards. Charlotte doesn’t seem phased, though, like she expected this and sits up in her seat, leans forward, chess player advancing her pawns. “That’s my problem,” she says, looking up. “And honestly, I wouldn’t have dared come to you if I wasn’t sure I could get you the votes.”

Right, Martha thinks, stays quiet for a bit. Oddly, in that moment, she remembers Shoe Lane. She remembers sitting outside on a bench, next to Clive, waiting for either of them to be called in. He kept talking about how his moot had gone, the stuff that he’d said and the stuff he hadn’t said, replaying it in his head while Martha sat in silence, looking at her feet. She must have tuned him out because she didn’t notice when he stopped talking, until he gently, briefly, put a hand on her knee.

‘Do you think there’s a chance we might both get in?’ he asked. She turned her head to look at him, found him staring right back, unexpectedly close. Sighed.

‘No.’

It killed her because of course, she knew what that meant. Martha had double the amount of things to prove and not enough time to do so. The moot had come and gone, not particularly bad but not particularly good for either of them, she guessed, and if it wasn’t the both of them, well, she knew who was more likely to win on a draw.

She felt Clive’s lips against hers before she could really understand what was happening, unexpectedly soft and tentative, just shy of deepening the kiss, his hand against the side of her face, pulling her closer. It wasn’t like the hungry, hot, get-each-other-naked-as-quick-as-we-can kisses she’d imagined, frankly (because yes, of course, she’d thought about it; he wasn’t her type but at the end of the day, they had spent the last six months practically living together in their room in Chambers, so obviously, it had crossed her mind) but it felt nice, strangely quiet and intimate. It was the first time he kissed her, she remembers. 

Clive pulled back and Martha raised an eyebrow at him, a short laugh escaping her lips.

‘What?’ he asked, looking away. She chased his look and realised, to her own astonishment, that there was shyness, right there, in his eyes, against all odds: the first glimpse she ever got at the real Clive Reader. He quickly found his footing again, raised an eyebrow back at her. ‘Since we’re not going to be working together anymore…’ he added, didn’t finish his sentence, just cocked his head to the side, waited.

She laughed, loud, genuine, shaking her head at him. ‘Since we’re not going to be working together anymore, what, Clive?’ Martha asked, then, mischievous, their bodies so very close to each other that she could feel his warmth on her skin. It was getting dark already, day setting around them, few people walking past, going home. ‘You thought a quick shag was in order?’

It was his turn to laugh, then, stare right into her eyes and tease: ‘Who said anything about quick, Marth?’

She laughed again but quickly looked away, feeling herself go a bit pink in the cheeks. Well, she guessed, if (or when – at this point, she obviously didn’t think it would take them another couple of years) it happened, she actually hoped it wouldn’t be quick, to tell the truth, but –

‘Come on,’ Clive winked at her; she bit her lip. ‘Tell me, you haven’t thought about it.’

Martha opened her mouth and shut it, felt suddenly drawn to him, ready to lean in and let him know how much, exactly, she had indeed thought about it when suddenly, she spotted Billy walking down the street, right there behind his shoulder. She froze and from the look on his face, so did Clive. The clerk’s look went from Martha to Clive, then back again when he reached the both of them; her heart hammered in her chest. Billy took what felt like a century to speak.

‘You’re in,’ he said.

Neither of the kids reacted, neither of them knowing who the good news was addressed to. Billy had stopped closer to Clive, Martha thought, it must have been meant for him. It would have made logical sense if it was him.

‘Oi, did you hear me?’ Billy asked, though, rolling his eyes at them. ‘You’re in, both of you. Now, go on, and be in at eight tomorrow.’

Martha felt her hand automatically reach her mouth to keep herself from screaming, all thoughts of Clive forgotten. It was a few, extra seconds before she tuned back in to reality, felt herself madly grinning at him. She couldn’t even believe it. Had she heard this right?

‘Well,’ Clive said, a bit later, smiling back at her, shoulder bumping against hers. ‘Looks like we are going to be working together, after all,’ he added and she laughed, shook her head at him. ‘I’m glad,’ he joked, smirking. ‘And yet so, incredibly sad.’

Martha burst out laughing, pretending to roll her eyes in disbelief. You’re in, you’re in, you’re in, Billy’s words kept repeating in her head. I’m in.

Eventually, Clive laughed, too, put his hand on her knee again, pushing himself up before offering her a hand. ‘Come on, Northern lass, let’s go get pissed.’

Martha smiled, she remembers, back then, took his hand and got drunk with him. Neither of them stayed over, though, until a couple years later, that night when her father passed away and the question of whether or not they were working together stopped being of any importance to either of them, and frankly, there are times when Martha does wonder what would have happened, maybe, how her life would have turned out if their thing had initially fed on a triumph rather than a tragedy. Today, she sits in silence and holds Charlotte’s gaze as she thinks about the last time she got voted into Chambers, her thumb nervously playing with the ring on her finger. She had fun at the bar, being honest with herself. Lots of fun, so yeah, it’s tempting but it’s not like before; it’s tempting but not obvious, or secure and even if Charlotte does have the votes, it’s a risk to take, a decision to make. She’s never been really good at making decisions, she just -

“I’m trying to get pregnant,” Martha admits, catching Charlotte’s gaze. 

And, finally, she thinks, she sees surprise in the other woman’s eyes. I’m pregnant, can you sell that? she remembers the look Billy threw her, that ability he seemed to have to know everything but the right thing to say. Well, Martha thinks, almost everything.

Charlotte stays silent for a while before she smiles, leans back in her chair. “And that’s supposed to what? Make me go back on my offer? You’re not even actually pregnant.”

Martha catches herself frowning a bit, guesses that wasn’t the reaction she expected, guesses -

“Listen,” Charlotte starts, the tip of her forefinger tapping against the wood of the table. “When I was about thirteen, fourteen years old, I had a dentist appointment that Dad was supposed to take me to, so I went to court to meet him after school. I was in the gallery, it was a murder trial – pretty gross, you know, the guy had slaughtered his girlfriend with a kitchen knife, but with the discussions at home, frankly, I didn’t think it was anything out the ordinary,” she laughs. “You were defending the guy.”

There’s a pause in her speech but Martha doesn’t open her mouth to counter, this time. She’s learnt to listen, sometimes, to what the client has to say.

“You were like, what, twenty-six?” Charlotte goes on, smiles. “Dad was one of the best barristers in the country, a Q.C., he was relentless with you, but you never gave up. I kept creeping back into the courtroom every evening after school and you were just – I’d seen many people go up against Dad before, they all gave up or let their nerves get the better of them. You never did.”

Yeah, right, Martha thinks, smiling. Plead, it’s common sense, Marth, Clive used to say, before he understood there was no talking her out of anything. “Did I win?”

“God, no,” Charlotte laughs. “Bloke got life, thank God,” she adds and Martha somehow catches herself laughing, too. Charlotte pauses, looks up at her. “I’ve wanted to clerk for you for almost twenty years, I’m not going to reconsider just because you and Clive Reader want a fucking kid.”

And there, suddenly, after she finally managed to start drinking her coffee when it reached an acceptable temperature, Martha feels herself almost choking on it. With difficulty, she swallows, throws a confused look at Charlotte.

Charlotte sighs: “Please,” she says, quickly, but Martha frowns, insists. They’ve been careful. It shouldn’t be - “You were waiting for him outside court the other day,” she says, explains. “Made a wild guess; the look on you face just confirmed it, thanks.”

Shit. Okay, Martha thinks, there’s no denying it, so: “That –” she starts, again.

“Isn’t public knowledge,” Charlotte interrupts, looking at her across the table. “I know. It doesn’t need to be. Just like what you just told me shouldn’t be of anyone’s business.”

It usually is, though, for women, and frankly, Martha finds it a bit unsettling that now, it doesn’t seem to matter. She expected her last objection to close the deal against her, expected Charlotte to go back on her offer, but now, it really is up to her, isn’t it? On cue, Charlotte gets up, out of nowhere, like back on that bench, like she’s done with her speech now, can rest her case.

“Sleep on it,” she says, grabbing her takeaway cup from the table. “Talk it over with your new beau, or whatever you two do. Call me tomorrow.”

.

And, of course, Martha does the exact opposite, actually. She doesn’t tell Clive, or talk it over with him, and she certainly doesn’t sleep. She stares up at the ceiling all night deciding that she should walk out of there while she still can, deciding what a terrible idea this is.

The next morning, she calls Charlotte and says: “Okay,” just like that. It clicks.

On the 23^rd of December 2014, Martha Costello decides to go back to work.

Chapter Text

x.

It looks ugly but it’s clean. Oh, Mamma, don’t fuss over me.

Cherry Wine - Hozier

Christmas is a slow and quiet affair, that year. Martha tells her mother she’s spending it with Clive and his family, a chalet in Chamonix and snow on the windowsills. Then, Martha tells Clive that she doesn’t know how to ski and frankly, can’t be bothered to learn. Spends Christmas Day by herself, happy and relaxed, has a stress-free bath and a stress-free nap, and a stress-free takeaway dinner in front of the telly. Clive calls in the evening; she listens to his voice, imagines him in the snow outside the chalet, all wood and dim lighting escaping the windows, the dark night and the stars above him.

“I need to tell you something,” she says, bites her lip. “I saw Charlotte Day again.”

They laugh about it. About Charlotte’s investigations into the both of them and Martha’s silly objections to her proposal. “She’s a good clerk,” Clive settles, smiles into the receiver.

“Do you think I was right to accept, then?” Martha asks. When he laughs, his voice shivers a bit with the cold.

“Do you actually want to know what I think?”

And, on the one hand, yes, she guesses. It’d be nice to have his support. On the other, though, she’ll probably do this regardless, would go back to work even if he stood there in front of her and told her exactly what a ludicrous enterprise it is. “No,” she smiles. “Not really.”

And so, he laughs again into the receiver; Martha kills her cigarette in the ashtray on her coffee table. Clive hates it when she smokes inside the flat but all the way over there in Chamonix, what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. “Well, there you go, then,” he smiles. “That’s the Martha Costello I know.”

Against all odds, she smiles, too.

.

Her first day back at work is the 11^th of January, 2015. Martha hasn’t had a first day in a new job in seventeen years. She’s nervous. Clive tries to lighten the mood, a few days before, raises the idea of going jogging on his lunch breaks. “New year, new me,” he says.  

Martha eyes him from the armchair in her living room, a rare ray of sun on her face. “Hmmh hmh,” she hums. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Her own resolution was to sleep better, more, earlier. It feels fitting that it doesn’t work, that she wakes up that Monday with about five hours of sleep; it feels like it used to. Her work uniform still fits and – How do I look? she texts Clive, a photo in the mirror. She didn’t want him to stay over last night, wanted (needed) the time to think.

A confused emoji. Like you always do?

She rolls her eyes, shoves her phone in her handbag. A picture of Billy rests on a shelf in the entrance hall. Wish me luck, she asks him.

.

For once, it’s early when she reaches Middle Temple. Martha doesn’t know if it’s the nerves, the idea that she might be late (as though she would somehow get lost), but the sun is still well below the horizon when she parks her car. The area is quiet; she barely sees anyone, takes her time, stands against one of the brick walls and smokes a cigarette. She was voted in last Monday – it was quick, Charlotte must have been labouring the field for weeks before they even met. She’s a good clerk, Clive did say, after all, didn’t he?

So, because it’s gone through quicker than Martha anticipated, the short period of lull, that first morning, the cigarette before the storm, is greatly appreciated. She tries to make herself remember this feeling, store it away for later use. Excited, scared, certain and yet so full of doubts. The bitter, cold, January air bites at her fingers; she watches the wheels of the world slowly start to turn. In the car park, Clive pulls up at 7:55, like clockwork, his sedan quickly backing into its spot.

His gaze falls on Martha’s, a good eighty metres out at least; she can still tell he’s smiling. Goes a bit red in the cheeks; she glances at her phone when it chirps.

7:58 AM

You look stunning.

Alright, she thinks. Waits for the last two minutes to pass, watches Clive as he heads up the street towards Shoe Lane. One, two, three, she counts in her head.

Go.

.

In court, it’s a learning curve. Her confidence gradually comes back, and eventually, so does her footing.  It doesn’t feel the same, necessarily – Martha’s scarred, she guesses – but it feels similar enough that it allows her to breathe a bit better, to find a sense of purpose again.

Charlotte, her new clerk, quickly becomes an ally, and a friend. She’s funny, one of those people whose laugh is loud and communicative – she plays stupid pranks on everyone and yet, somehow, still manages to be taken seriously. The clerks’ room is full of bright colours, and life, and Martha can’t help but smile every time she steps in.

The first case she gets is a fraud case. The second one, a driving offence. The third one, a murder.

“It’s been two weeks,” Charlotte says, in lieu of an explanation. “I’ve sheltered you enough.”

And from then on, Martha takes it one case at a time. Eventually, it gets better. She stops thinking about Sean rotting in jail all the time. Eventually, she finds herself able to laugh with CW again (Harriet is always a good topic of conversation) and she meets new people in Chambers, too. Vanessa, the other barrister who shares her room is quiet but nice, doesn’t speak when she works, a fact quite liberating after fifteen years spent pretending not to hear Clive as he whined and commented on his cases every ten minutes. Now, Martha feels like she’s the loud one when she listens to music she’s pretty sure can be heard past her earphones.

Of course, it’s not like Clive’s whines and attempts at distraction really go away. They simply move from her work desk to her kitchen table and get much harder to resist. Over time, they find their routine. It’s an unspoken mutual understanding between the two of them that they don’t want to become a thing that people care about. Martha has no interest in being one half of a legal power-couple so they ignore each other to a somewhat comical extent every time they’re in the robbing room together, quite unsuccessfully if the look on CW’s face is any indication. Martha finds that she doesn’t really mind people guessing, just doesn’t want to confirm it.

There’s work, and then there’s them, now, and they try to keep that as separate as they can. When they work from home, her kitchen table is split in two, Chinese wall in between. Anything shared in confidence may not, ever, be used in a court of law. Also, sex is a good way to relieve stress, Martha finds.

.

At work, over the next few weeks, she also reconnects with people, too. Bumps into him on her second day (literally bumps into him, with files in her arms and her phone perched between the side of her face and her shoulder, and everything falls off in a loud clatter). Nick - as he explains mid-way through an awkward apology, trying to help pick her things up - apparently landed at her new Chambers after Shoe Lane, and has been there for the last three years. The boy still looks ridiculously young but has somehow graduated from saving puppies to saving actual people, and two months later, when Martha wins a case and feels in a celebratory mood, even has money to pay for her drinks.

Over time, she forgets everything she’s learnt, in her months of inactivity, about periods, cycles, and trying. Back then, when she and Clive were having sex, there was always a nagging though at the back of her mind, something that said: yes, this might lead to it, or no, this is just for fun.  Now, most of the time, Martha frankly doesn’t really know when her last period was. She’s in Chambers four days a week, and in Manchester on Fridays (didn’t want to let Evershed down mid-year when she promised she’d do two terms) and to be fully honest, her life just gets really, fucking busy.

Clive smiles at her one night; she falls asleep on the couch as he cooks in the kitchen, exhausted. “When you get pregnant, you’ll work until you have that baby in court, I’m telling you,” he laughs.

His look isn’t on hers. The tone of his voice is casual but Martha knows him well enough to filter the nervousness underneath. They haven’t talked about it in a good while, she realises, and maybe this is his way of asking if they’re still trying, if she’s still okay with trying with him.

That evening, Martha looks up after he speaks, stands and walks over, her hand covering his. She puts the knife down against the cutting board and forces Clive to turn to face her, kisses him open-mouthed, long, slow and deliberate. His hands find her hips, instinctive, and she feels the edge of the table behind her, scoots and sits on it. He stands between her legs; she whispers in his ear: “Maybe you should put a little bit more work into that, yeah?”

“Hey,” he smiles. “I’m not the one who’s been holed up at work for three days, refusing to talk to anybody,” he teases and Martha feels his fingers lift the hem of her shirt, caressing the skin underneath.

“You were in Newcastle for three days before that, though,” she points out, against his lips. “Can’t make a baby on my own, can I? May have to look into other options -”

“Other options?”

She teases. “Other candidates, maybe?”

“Like who?”

And, that’s when she simply bursts out laughing, quiet but genuine, shaking her head at him. Clive’s look falls upon hers, hands still on her hips; he frowns. “You’re jealous,” she smirks, grins against his lips, bringing him back to her.

His hands start moving under her shirt again, but there’s more purpose to them this time. Clive ends up chuckling against her skin, drops kisses on her neck. “You know what? I totally am,” he says.

Martha laughs, catches his lips. Her kiss is slow, warm, like the spring blossoms that have just started to appear upon tree branches. Her hand is against his crotch; she feels him tense when she says: “I only want you.”

This time, his kiss has nothing slow about it; Clive kisses her hard, proprietary, and to tell the truth, there’s something so incredibly hot about it, about how quickly she was able to rile him up, make him reaffirm that she is his, at least for the time being. He stops again, a few moments later, catches her gaze and almost sounds surprised. “Jokes aside,” he asks, frowning. “Six days? Has it really been that long?”

She chuckles, nods. Yes, she confirms. The last time they had sex was indeed before her trial, before his trip to Newcastle, and it’s been a while. Clive argues that it can’t be right but she’s got to admit that it (very) unfortunately is. He looks around him, laughs in her ear.

“Fuck this food, then,” he says, quick, eyes the half-cut tomatoes on the counter. “I’m taking you to bed.”

.

So, yes. They’re still trying.

It’s not working, will probably never work, but it’s fun. She learns to enjoy the fun.

She’s happy and that’s already a lot.

.

It is February when a case lands on her lap. She’s talking to Nick, that day, the crazy stories that always come from the junior end; she sometimes needs them to be reminded of the kinds of shit that people do. “I mean look at this,” Nick tells her, pictures laid out in front of him. “That can’t be a party gone wrong,” he laughs; his client is in for vandalism. “That’s a workaholic demolition worker gone wild.”

Martha’s still chuckling when Charlotte comes in, smiles at the both of them. She drops a bunch of files on Martha’s desk. “Miss, these are for you.”

Martha sighs. It’s five in the afternoon already. Nick looks up at Charlotte, seems to ask if she’s staying, or wants him to leave. She shakes her head no; he stays put.

“When’s it for?” Martha sighs.

“Oh, not until the end of March, Miss,” Charlotte says. “Miss,” she repeats, fast, eyeing the both of them. “Sir. I’ll leave you to it.”

It’s a moment before Martha’s even realises she’s gone, sips on her tea and frowns to herself, catches Nick’s look. “End of March?” she repeats, surprised. That’s almost a couple of months out. It’s not unheard of, sure, but it’s odd, given that they’re all more used to extremely late returns and things that are due yesterday.

Nick shrugs, looks at the time on his phone, sighs. “I think I have to get back,” he says but Martha’s already too intrigued by the file in front of her to really pay attention. It was odd, wasn’t it? she thinks to herself. The way Charlotte dropped the binder on her desk and almost ran away, the way she –

Martha unties the ribbon and lifts the cover of the file as Nick packs his stuff, reads the name on the first page and gasps. Leaves the binder open on her desk and rushes out of the room, chasing after Charlotte in the corridor. As she shouts the clerk’s name as loud as she possibly can, Martha notices a smile on Nick’s face.

“Holy fuck,” he says, quick. “Can I junior?”

.

It’s officially the biggest case she’s ever worked on. Martha’s both scared shitless and excited to the point that she can’t sleep at night. There are a million things to think about. Billy would never have taken on something like that. He would have said it would blow up in their faces. In all likelihood, it probably will blow up in their faces. Charlotte, though, seems to think that it won’t.

“I’m going to need a pupil. And a junior. Full time,” Martha announces from the get-go.

“Whatever you need, Miss.”

And from then on, since they don’t want the news to spread like wildfire over Middle Temple, Chambers is lockdown. The only outsider who knows, for a very long time, is Clive. Martha lays it out for Charlotte right away, that first evening when they talk time, resources and strategy – a whisper away from Nick’s ears. “I need to tell Clive,” she says.

Charlotte frowns, looks torn. “I’d rather we keep this internal.”

“He needs to know why I’m going to be both unbearable and mostly unavailable for the next three months.”

Charlotte smirks, catches Martha’s gaze. “Will he keep it quiet?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, then.”

.

And honestly, that’s good news because in retrospect, Martha thinks she couldn’t even have kept it from him even if she’d tried. She arrives at his on Friday evening with three cardboard boxes of files filled to the brim. “New case?” he asks, helps her carry the boxes inside. He’s been cooking: his lips taste like cinnamon when she kisses him. “Go on, take a look,” she tells him.

They’ve had dinner and a chat about his brother’s upcoming wedding by the time the topic gets back on the table. Clive is cleaning up the kitchen, eyes her over the counter. “So, Berrian, eh?” he asks.

And: yes, she thinks. William Berrian, Etonian, charity sponsor, Tory MP and Minister for Foreign Affairs - married to the gorgeous, posh, blond and quiet Isabelle Berrian, née Dupuis. Old money, French descent. On Christmas morning, about a year ago, she (allegedly – Martha insists) found out she was pregnant, tied her husband up to a chair in their kitchen, crushed two of his fingers with a hammer and shot him in the head. As far as the press is concerned (and the whole of England, frankly), she’s a monster. The plan would have been perfect; she would have been able to escape if only the neighbour hadn’t interrupted to ask if the Berrians wanted to join her and her husband for brunch.

Isabelle couldn’t bring herself shoot Mrs Pierce, so she ended up turning herself in.

The Sun has been all over the case for months and as a result, so has most of the country. From what Martha’s gathered, multiple briefs have been hired, fired, multiple solicitors, too. Isabelle has money. So did her husband. The families are at each other’s throats in a constant back and forth of interviews and press declarations and, to Martha’s knowledge, Isabelle has not uttered a word since her arrest. Not to her solicitor, not to her parents, not a word. She’s being charged with murder, torture, and half a dozen other things Martha hasn’t even had time to look into. For now, she’s had her baby in jail and they’ve allowed her to keep it in custody, pending the outcome of the trial. Martha looks up at Clive, smiles.

“Have you met her?” he asks. Then: “Has she really said nothing at all?” and “Is she pleading?”

The questions come in quick fire; she can see the fascination behind his eyes, topped by a sense of pride that she’s the one defending it. “Curiosity killed the cat, Clive,” she tells him, playfully, because honestly, confidentiality dictates that there are a lot of things she just can’t tell him. He laughs, relents.

“Who’s prosecuting?” he asks.

“Mark Brooke. He’s at Roberts’ now, I think,” she adds, seems to remember the racket it created when the man left Wellings Chambers a few years ago. Clive wipes his hands on a tea towel and takes her wine glass, steals a sip. “I’m told he’s good,” Martha muses. Vaguely remembers meeting Brooke at a couple of sucking-up bar events; he was nice, she recalls, kind of kept to himself.

“He is,” Clive says, drinks. “Had a case against him a couple years ago.” He pauses, then, catches Martha’s gaze. “I’m better, though.”

There’s a playful look in Clive’s gaze and it makes her laugh, dares her to come over to him. She does, smiles, stands on her tiptoes and drops a kiss to his lips. He responds in kind, hands finding her hips and pulling her closer.

“Kind of lucky Shoe Lane didn’t get that one, right?” he whispers against her, his hands trailing under her shirt and around her back; she feels one of his palms on her bum, over the fabric of her leggings. “You’d have been conflicted out.”

And, well: trying for a baby with opposing counsel? Yeah, that might actually have been something the BSB would have frown upon, Martha muses. “You’d have been conflicted out,” she smiles, catches his gaze. “I’d have fought you dirty to keep that one.”

Clive laughs, against her lips. Kisses her, strong and open-mouthed, wandering hands. “Yeah? What would you have done?” he teases. A whisper: “Keep talking, Martha Costello.”

.

They’re lying in bed, later, and he catches her gaze; she’s snuggled up against him. “How do you feel about it, really, though?” he asks.

She watches his face, shrugs. “Excited?”

It’s odd, really, and he’s the only one she’d ever admit that to (it would look bad, horrible even, given the gruesome nature of the case, if she said that to anybody else), but there’s something deeply flattering and humbling about being picked to run a case like this, especially considering how bumpy things have been, for her, since Billy died. Weirdly, there’s a part of Martha that still doesn’t understand how this landed on her lap, like it may all be one big mistake. Clive smiles, though, understands.

“Nervous, too,” she adds. It’s almost an afterthought, not so much because she naively thinks that she won’t be (she knows, already, that there will be a point where fear will almost petrify her, when the hardest thing will be to get up, stand up in the morning, and just keep going), but because it’s not the dominant feeling right now, not this far out from the trial date. “I mean, like I said, I haven’t met her yet but if it’s true that she’s not talking, then I can’t take instructions, and if I can’t take instructions, what the fuck am I going to do?”

The tips of Clive’s fingers brush a strand of hair from her face. “She’ll talk to you,” he smiles, reassuring. “They all do.”

.

Well, Martha finds, a few days later. ‘They all do,’ but Isabelle fucking Berrian doesn’t. She really doesn’t ever talk.

At first, it’s awkward. Martha doesn’t know how to react. She tries the usual, shares things about Clive, about her dad, about herself. More often than not, Nick isn’t in the room so she’s able to get real personal, even tells Isabelle bits and bobs about the assault. Even then, though, it’s like talking to a fucking wall. An expressive wall. Martha sometimes reads surprise over Isabelle’s face, interest, amusement but no sound ever comes out of her mouth. To a degree, there’s something almost comforting in the woman’s silences, a sort of consistency that helps Martha deal with the craziness of the world outside.

Even in the face of the evidence they present her, Isabell still doesn’t open her mouth. One night, Nick and Martha uncover records of about thirty hospital visits in the last five years. Different A&Es, different clinics around London. “27^th of February,” Martha lists, flinging each file against the table between her and her client, prison walls that call for desperate measures. “You fell. And, then, let’s see,” she pretends to look at the papers in front of her, doesn’t want to look into the other woman’s eyes. “10^th of April, you, yourself, burnt your own palm on the stove for ‘fifteen seconds or more’ according to the doctors’ reports,” she breathes, speaks again. “And, here, 15^th of August, you fall, again,” Martha places another folder on the table between them. “And again,” she says, with each file. “And again.”

The client remains mute, trapped in the years of abuse her husband’s clearly inflicted upon her. ‘You can’t ask her about it,’ Nick said, the night before, coming to Martha with the thirtieth report. ‘She’ll freak out.’

Martha nodded, took stock, said nothing. Ran the DV argument by Clive, later on. Has to admit that in spite of the best efforts she initially made at keeping him out of the case, he’s become her unofficial sounding board, over the past few weeks. He shows her the things that she fails to see. That night, he reviewed the reports, sat in silence for a while.

‘You have to use this,’ he said. ‘You’re not acting in her best interests if you don’t use this.’

So that’s what she’s doing, now: using this. And the client still doesn’t budge, looks at Martha flinging files on the table with eyes filled with fear and regret, but doesn’t say a word. “Isabelle,” Martha says. “Please help me out here. Because either you were very, very clumsy or he was beating the shit of you on a regular basis and that’s why you killed him.”

The silence weighs heavy on the room. Martha counts in her head. One. Two. Three. Four. Her client is a public-school ice queen, nothing ever seems to betray what she’s thinking. Isabelle remains mute, still, but a few minutes later, right before they leave, hot, heavy sobs start cascading down her face. Martha takes her client’s hand and sees her nod, blink, almost imperceptible.

“Okay,” Martha says; her voice almost breaks when she speaks. “Okay. We’ll run that, then.”

Isabelle smiles, later, at Nick, at Martha, a sad, understanding smile. Doesn’t say anything, still.

“You care,” Nick points out, outside. Martha’s tears have finally torn down the wall she imposed upon them and have begun to wet her cheeks. There’s no judgment, in his voice; he hands her a pack of tissues – Martha blows her nose into one, dries the salt on her skin.

“Yep,” she admits. They’re getting in the car; she sits in the driver’s seat and lays her hands flat on the wheel. Doesn’t look at him. “I care so much it fucking tears me apart.”

.

That night, Clive turns the radio on, loud, in her flat, takes her hand and forces her up, away from her desk. She doesn’t know the song - it’s just BBC Radio One – but after a while, she finds herself giving in to his smiles, moving her body to the beat as he holds her hand and makes her sway. Lady, it says, running down to the riptide, taken away to the dark side, I want to be your left-hand man. I love you when you’re singing that song and I’ve got a lump in my throat ‘cause you’re going to sing the words wrong.

“You’re going to win this,” Clive whispers, in her ear, when the music dies. “Trust me.”

.

She honestly doesn’t know, though. It all feels uncertain.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, the Thursday before trial, Martha decides to take Nick out for a drink. They laugh, try to talk about anything but the case, he admits he’s been dating Niamh for the past two years, thinks of proposing to her in Greece, over the summer. Martha smiles, genuine, the kind of happy ending she only sees in films.

“I do miss Shoe Lane sometimes,” he confesses to her, a bit later. Martha’s had a few drinks, notices a text from Clive popping up on her phone, asking if she wants to come over. It’s past eleven in the evening so, clearly, he’s not asking her over for tea.

She keeps listening to Nick, uncrossing and crossing her legs, again, automatically. 

I’m at the pub, she texts back, placing the phone down against her thigh. “It was a good place to learn,” Nick adds. “You and Clive, you were a powerhouse when you worked together.”

Martha looks up, tries to gauge where he’s going with this. Nick suspects, she’s pretty sure. He’s dropped hints over the past few weeks, definitely knows she’s seeing someone from Shoe Lane, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who that could be. It’s a bit of game, to tell the truth, that Martha’s never confirmed nor denied his suspicions – it makes him laugh, she thinks.

Clive’s been there, for her, over the past few weeks. He’s helped her make sense of the case, see the prosecution angle that she sometimes couldn’t see, all of that for free, just because he claims to like her company. It’s a different way of working with him, Martha knows, but it seems to function all the same.

Against her thigh, her phone keeps vibrating at regular intervals, throughout the evening. She ignores it, doesn’t want to give in to Nick’s speculations, waits until he goes to the toilet to check. She scrolls down the screen, bites her lip.

11:34 p.m.

That’s a shame.

I miss you.

11:35 p.m.

Well, also I want you.

11:42 p.m.

See, you would leave the pub and come over. It would be dark, already.

We would kiss at the door. I would pull you in and have you up against the wall. My lips against your neck, fingers between your legs.

11:55 p.m.

And you know how good I am with my fingers.

11:58 p.m.

I don’t think we’d make it past the hallway, this time.

I would hike your skirt up your legs –

She doesn’t get to finish the messages because someone, in front of her, coughs. Nick. Martha shakes her head, bites her lip again, looks away.

“You okay?” he asks, an amused glance on his face.

She responds on autopilot. “I, uh. I think I’ve got to go.”

“Somewhere to be?” Nick says, amused, raising an eyebrow at her. He makes a show of looking at his watch. Yes, it’s late, she thinks, rolling her eyes.

But: “Yes,” she also just says, reaching for her bag.

.

Martha makes it to Clive’s about twenty minutes later; he opens the door in his pyjamas and she kisses him, open mouthed, before he can say anything. For about a second, he’s a bit shell-shocked until he quickly follows her lead, closing the door behind them and pushing her against it. He’s working on pulling down one of her stockings when he breaks the kiss for a second, raises an eyebrow at her. “Had fun at the pub?” he says and she lets out a chuckle, nods.

“Had a couple bottles of wine.”

“On your own?”

She laughs, presses against him, finds his hand on her hip and moves it between her thighs (he doesn’t get to send her texts like that when it’s late and she’s had a few, and then take his time, for fuck’s sake). Her pencil skirt gets in the way so she lets him hike it up and lift it over her head, then it’s back against the wall she goes. “No, with Nick,” she corrects, her fingers trailing under his shirt.

Clive raises an eyebrow, his mouth against her collarbone, fingers pushing her underwear aside. “Did you see my texts?” he teases.

She chuckles, slips a hand inside his pants; it does seem to get his attention, from the look he throws her, breath caught in his throat. Quickly, she finds that she doesn’t really care for the foreplay he seems to have tried to instigate, here. She shifts a bit; what she wants is him inside her right now, actually. “I did, yes,” she confirms.

Clive smiles, again, his thumb on her clit. She sighs, heavy, shaking her head. She’s pushed his pants down, has him strong in her hand, inches away from where she wants him to be, bites her lip.

“Are you going to own up to it?” she whispers, in his ear. “Or was it all just talk?”

He laughs but pushes into her then, suddenly, and she responds with a loud moan that she’s pretty sure can be heard by his neighbours down the corridor but frankly, it feels too good to care. He doesn’t move immediately after that, though, for a bit, just stays there, deep inside her until she opens her eyes, crosses his gaze.

“Hey,” he says, pushing a strand of hair off her face. Martha smiles, lets out a quiet laugh.

“Hey.”

.

They do end up in bed, eventually, for round two, and frankly, she doesn’t know if it’s the orgasms or the alcohol but she feels a bit drunk, still, sleepy and lazy. It’s past 3 a.m., now, and she’s got a train to Manchester at six (she doesn’t really want to be there when her alarm goes off in an hour) yet, she tries to keep her eyes open, her head on Clive’s chest, the lamp on his bedside table shading a soft light on his face.

“I really, really like you, Clive Reader,” she says, looking up at him. He laughs, hand trailing up and down her arm.

“You’re drunk.”

Martha laughs, too, gently slaps his shoulder, says: “Maybe. I’ll take that back, then.”

He shakes his head at her and a moment passes; she almost closes her eyes. “So, you were out with Nick?” Clive asks, teases. Martha rolls her eyes at him.  

“Yes.”

“The one who pushed me down the stairs?”

“You were high and you tripped.”

“We seem to have different recollections –”

Martha interrupts him with a glare, moving up to face him. She makes sure he stops talking before resting her head back down. “You do that again and I’ll kill you, by the way,” she says, after a moment, somewhat mumbling against his skin. “I’m not sleeping with a cokehead.”

Clive chuckles, his chest shaking a bit. “Didn’t seem to bother you bef–”

Martha moves her head again, rests it on the back of her hand and glares into his eyes, dead serious. “Finish that thought and I’ll murder you in your sleep, make it look like an overdose, and get away with it.”

Clive bursts out laughing, then, shakes his head at her. “I haven’t used since you got silk and I didn’t, Marth.”

She frowns, arching an eyebrow at him, trying to read if he’s telling the truth. He seems to be. She doesn’t know what to say, what to make of that fact, so: “Good,” Martha just responds, then, lying back down. “I’m sleeping now,” she adds and hears Clive chuckle as she closes her eyes.

.

On Monday morning, she visits Isabelle, one last time before the start of the trial. The crowd in front of the courthouse is the largest Martha has ever seen, the press swarming in like vultures over William Berrian’s dead body – Monster on trial, the headlines read on people’s phone this morning.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she tells Isabelle, who fidgets with the skin at the edge of her delicate fingers. “Looked you up on Wikipedia. You read law at Oxford, didn’t you? That’s how you met him.”

Him – her husband: the charming, handsome posh boy who abused her for years – Martha guesses that he didn’t beat Isabelle up with class and/or dignity. The woman’s gaze finds Martha’s - a nod, shy and discreet. Her back is always straight, blonde hair plaited at the base of her neck, she always looks like she’d fit perfectly in a castle, calling for a prince to come and save her.

Martha shakes her head, then, and lets out a sad sound, between a sigh and a laugh, something heartbroken and heavy. “So did Clive,” she tells Isabelle. Thinks of the sacrifices the boy in her life has accepted to make for her, thinks about her own past, too. “I obviously didn’t,” Martha smiles to herself, an afterthought. Repeats what she told Billy: “Just went to lots of nightclubs in Manchester,” she chuckles, soft. And even then, she wonders, sometimes, if her dad hadn’t gotten sick, would she even have gone to law school at all? “It’s funny, isn’t it?” she asks, then, but also kind of just talks to herself. “How things just sort of happen?”

“‘It’s what life is,’” Isabelle says, quotes, like the easiest thing in the world, like these are not the first worsts she’s uttered in months. “‘It’s a series of rooms and who we get stuck in those rooms with adds up to what our lives are.’”

The sound of her voice is beautiful, Martha thinks, albeit hoarse, probably one of the loveliest sounds that have ever been heard. There is the slightest hint of a French accent in the vowels that her client speaks and all that Martha can think is that Isabelle’s voice is a treat that the whole world should get to hear. Tears crowd at the back of her eyes when she glances away.

“Don’t,” Isabelle says, adds, smiles, and Martha feels her hand against hers. “You’ve got a good heart.”

It’s ten minutes to trial, and she’s speaking, finally, and even if it’s only for a few seconds, she’s strong, Isabelle, and vulnerable, and Martha just wants to save her. “Give me instructions,” is the first thing she replies, shaking her head in disbelief. “If there’s anything that you want me to say, out there -”

The client is soft when she answers. Her barrister doesn’t know it yet but they will be the last words that she’ll speak, the last words she’ll ever hear from Isabelle before she will wall herself up in silence again. That soft, elegant voice of hers. “I’d like to keep the baby with me,” she smiles, sad. “If that’s possible.”

.

Nick stares when Martha speaks: “She wants to keep the baby.”

“In jail? Shit, she’d have to get less than eighteen months, Martha.”

“I know.”

.

The client shakes like a leaf every time a man speaks a bit too loud during trial. Looks away when the neighbours go on and on describing what a great man William was.

She’s is charged with murder. Is found guilty of manslaughter. Gets five years.

The client screams.

.

Martha thinks she’ll never forget that scream. The scream of a woman who’s just lost a child.

That night, she sits in the dark with a bottle of whiskey.

It’s a good hour before Clive uses his key– she hears the lock turning before he steps in. He’s never done that in the past - use his key. Has had one for years, for safekeeping in case Martha loses hers (it does happen pretty regularly she must admit), but it feels oddly intimate, now. He doesn’t turn on the lights; the couch dips as he sits next to her, waits until she talks – she doesn’t. Two shots later, she reaches close to the bottom of the bottle - he takes it away. “I think you’ve had enough,” he says.   

Martha disagrees but finds that she doesn’t have the energy to fight him.

“Marth,” he starts. She can’t look at him. “Marth, you got five years on a gruesome murder charge with the whole world against you, that’s one hell of a win -”

“She’s not going to be able to keep the baby,” Martha interrupts, slurs, states facts and reaches for the pack of cigarettes on the table. She’s clumsy, lets it fall; Clive sighs, takes that away, too. “It’s the one thing she asked and it’s just –”

She feels like crying. Feels like she can’t breathe, strangled sobs escaping her lips. Martha looks up at Clive, the sad gaze in his eyes and it’s stupid, fruitless, really, but she tries to kiss him. Draws him to her and pushes her lips against his. He pulls away, tries to stop her: “Marth,” he says but she catches his mouth again in an attempt to silence his objections, starts fiddling with the buttons of his jeans. She’s seeking comfort, maybe, or validation that she’s still good enough for him. Clive’s gentle – too gentle, when he pushes her away.

“Right,” she says, cold, shakes her head, relents and pulls away. “You don’t even want me anymore. Great.”

But, instead of being harsh like she wishes him to, Clive is soft. Too soft, too kind when he catches her gaze. She wants him to scream at her, tell her she tried so hard and still failed because she’ll never the person that she wants to be. She’d like him to say he hates her, she thinks, is disappointed in her, so much that he doesn’t even want to fuck her.

(He’s never not wanted to fuck her before.)

“Not like this. You’ve had too much,” he observes, throwing a look at the empty bottle, next to her. “You’re not thinking straight.”

It hits her like a punch in the gut. Tonight’s the first time, the first time she drinks enough that the world is blurry around her, the first time since –

She glares at Clive, lets out something between a howl and laugh, gets defensive, hurtful, like she always does when she’s wounded. He knows that, is used to that. A song floats through her head: I’m sorry I broke it, never forgive me, it says and she tries to ignore it, tries to push away what it’s trying to say.

“That’s never bothered you before,” she throws back at him, faux-casual. He takes the hit, clenches his jaw, stares right back at her.

“That’s mean,” he observes, matter-of-fact, oddly certain of his words. She crosses his gaze and guesses that it is, yes, and maybe she is being unfair, because in truth, she’s never felt like he’s ever taken advantage of her, but -  

She shrugs, sits back against the cushions of the couch. Martha looks at Clive, now, and: “She just wanted to keep the baby,” she repeats, again, and again, loud sobs finally breaking and hurting her face; she doesn’t have the strength to shake him off when he puts his arms around her and pulls her into a hug, tears falling against his shirt.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know,” and: “Shhh. I’m here. I promise.”

.

The next morning, in bed, is oddly quiet. Her cheeks hurt from the tears she’s shed and Martha doesn’t know it yet, because her phone is off and she hasn’t seen the headlines, but it’s probably the last dull morning she’ll have for a good while. Before the frenzy starts again, before the press. Clive lies next to her - she looks into his tired eyes; he brushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Did you sleep?” she whispers. Can tell he’s honest when he shakes his head no, shrugs, but doesn’t speak. His fingers are warm, against Martha’s face; she pretends that they’re the only people left in the world, her face so close to his. “Talk to me,” she mutters, breathes.

“Did you ever regret it?” he asks. Martha instantly hates herself, hates last night, hates – “I mean, what you said yesterday. Did you ever wake up and think you’d had too much to drink, think I shouldn’t have -”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, there and then. Cuts him off before he can say more, remind her of the stupid things she threw at him last night, out of anger and grief. They’re not words that come out of her mouth often but when she says them, she means them, and so she does, now, more than ever. “Listen to me,” she insists when he shakes his head, tries to whisper over her. “I’m sorry. I never thought that in a million years,” she breathes.

And it’s true. She always felt safe, with him, always knew that she could trust him. He proved it again last night, did the right thing, and she’s so, so angry at herself for being too drunk to see that straight away.

“I only ever really regretted it once,” she admits, catching his gaze. Wills him to believe her. “When I was with Jérôme. Not because it happened, but because it hurt him,” she breathes. “I was sober for that.”

Clive kisses her, then, and all she knows is that from now on, she feels like she should, forever, be the one who apologises. Because, whatever it was, whatever ever happened between the both of them, he might have been a dick, sometimes, but never ever took advantage of her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers again, against his lips. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His eyes are cobalt blue again, under the rising sun. “I love you,” he tells her, lets her bury her face in the crook of his shoulder.

“I want,” she whispers, trails off. I want to say it back, she thinks, but she’s scared, scared of what it might mean. If we fall too hard, she said herself, months ago.

“Come here,” Clive whispers, holds her. “I know.”

.

And the thing is, the odd thing that keeps surprising her is: while Clive is there for moral support and helps her through the trial, he also sticks around for the aftermath. It’s never a question.

The impact of the Berrian case seems to go well beyond Isabelle’s individual circumstances. Beyond Martha’s too. Maybe it’s because the parties were famous, maybe it’s because Isabelle’s husband was a cabinet member, or maybe, Martha muses, because it’s about damn time. Her client is sentenced to five years in jail and individually, Martha feels like that’s her own personal failure, but that’s not what the rest of England thinks. The verdict blows through the country like dynamite and suddenly, the views on Isabelle take a one-sixty degree turn, now that the abuse has come to light. Isabelle becomes a symbol, the woman who fought back, and Martha becomes the one who defended her. Her phone rings and rings, and rings, and Martha thinks that even if she’d tried to prepare herself for this, there was no way she could have anticipated it. She turns down all the interview requests that come her way so there are crowds of journalists on her doorstep and death threats from men’s rights activists in her inbox; she has to sleep at Clive’s for a few weeks, until the whole thing blows over. Isabelle’s blank, pristine face is on every magazine in the country, with words and words, and words about the hundreds of women who were murdered by their partners and while the gruesome nature of Martha’s client’s act is acknowledged, she’s dubbed as the one who just had enough.

Martha doesn’t even know if that’s true. The conversation might be a good one to have but Isabelle hasn’t uttered a single word again and Martha respects that. Keeps quiet, and lets the wave flow over her, too.

The thing is, though, of course, at work, the cases start pouring in like the reputation hit Martha took after Sean’s case never happened. “Your name’s on everybody’s lips and yet, you’re in my bed,” Clive jokes in her ear, once, and while Martha is somewhat generally positive about the whole thing, it just feels a bit odd to be in the middle of it. This much praise feels suspicious and she keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to hit the side of her face by surprise. Nothing does, though, so she puts her head down and tries to feel thankful, buries herself in work and repeats over and over in her head that she’s not a total fraud.

She’s proud of the work they did on that case.

She just wishes she could have done just a tiny bit more.

.

And yes, of course, the whole hubbub eventually quiets down, over the next few weeks. Things gradually get back to an acceptable level of quasi-normalcy. Martha’s able to move back into her apartment, work without hordes of journalists wondering what her next big case is going to be, and thankfully, finally sleep. The beginning of May rolls around and the weather gets nicer, the days longer, her smile wider. During the week, Clive and she often have lunch in the park. They hold hands. They’re a thing.

She’s not quite sure what that thing is. They’re still operating under the terms of the agreement they had last September, and frankly, it suits them just fine. She doesn’t want to put words on feelings that might break spells.

Clive smiles at her, eyes squinting in the sun. “You know, I heard something funny the other day.”

She’s typing an email on her phone, looks up, cocks an eyebrow at him. They’re sitting on a bench, empty Costa cups next to them.

“Rumour has it you’re sleeping with me.”

“Rumour has always had it that I was sleeping with you, Clive,” she points out, laughing behind her sunglasses. “Even when I wasn’t.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Have you been living under a rock?”

“Well, anyway,” he says, shrugs, looking somewhat genuinely surprised. “I confirmed it.”

“Did you, now?” she whispers, amused, as she removes her sunglasses. Martha kisses him, soft but long, lips dancing slowly over his. She feels the heat of the sun on her face, the smile on his. It feels like it’s time, doesn’t it?

“Hmmh,” he hums, nods. Jokes: “Snogging me in public, now, Martha Costello, you are out of control.”

She bursts out laughing again, his hand in hers.

.

That Sunday afternoon, they’re at his sister’s house for his nephew’s birthday and with the change in temperature as well as the kids running around with bacteria all over their hands, Clive catches a bout of stomach flu.

Now, Martha’s had the bloody thing before and although she remembers it to be quite frustrating and uncomfortable, she’s not sure it warrants the three days Clive spends on her couch, flicking through obscure cable TV channels, whining and acting like he’s on the brink of death. On the phone, Jo calls it the “man flu” and swears it’s real. Martha is frankly tempted to agree.

So, of course, because they more or less live together now (they don’t; he still has his apartment and she insists on finding excuses to send him home every once in a while to prove that they don’t, actually, live together), it’s no surprise when, a few days later, she wakes up feeling gross and nauseous, and throws up her breakfast in the toilet.

“Sorry,” Clive says, an apologetic puppy look on his face. She shoots him a death glare in return, sitting on her heels wondering if she’s going to puke again – she feels sick and has a headache, and her period must be coming because her tits bloody hurt, and frankly, she’s not in the mood.

“This is your fault,” she tells him, which doesn’t help her current situation but does alleviate a bit of frustration as she sits back – still nauseous, but probably not throwing up again - and wipes her mouth.

His hand gently rubs her shoulder; she tries to hate him, really does, but she finds herself slightly leaning into his touch. “You should stay home today,” he whispers as his hand travels down to rub her back a little; it’s odd but it helps.

That being said, she spent too much time making fun of him last week for her ego to give in so Martha does what women do: shakes her head and gets up, reluctantly, flushing the toilet and reaching for her toothbrush by the sink. Clive just rolls his eyes and sighs.

.

The thing is: three days later, she’s still sick. Clive felt significantly better on day four so she holds high hopes when she goes to bed, until she wakes up in the morning and feels like bloody death again. She’s in the kitchen attempting to swallow a piece of biscotti when she has to hold onto the counter, her knees almost giving out, vision suddenly blurring before her eyes. Clive catches her right before she faints, arm around her shoulders as he walks her back to her bedroom, helps her sit on the bed. He places his hand behind her head until she’s fully lying down; she’d be tempted to fight him, if only she had the energy to do so.

“Jesus, you’re white as a sheet, Marth,” he says. She tries to shift away from him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Clive laughs, holding her in place.

Martha sighs, tries to move again. “Look, I can’t stay in, alright? I’ve got this bail –”

“Marth, you’re not going to work for a fucking bail hearing, that’s what juniors are for.”

She shoots him a glare.

“You’re sick, exhausted, you almost fainted,” he argues, softly caressing her cheek. “You’re not going to work today; I’ll tie you to this bed myself if I have to.”

She raises an eyebrow at him and a glaring contest ensues, which he wins by a large margin. “Fine,” she sighs, extends her hand. “Give me my phone, I need to call Charlotte.”

.

It’s past eleven when she wakes up again. Her stomach seems to have settled a bit, the dizziness as well; she takes her things and heads for the couch, scrolling through the news on her phone.

It’s been almost a year since Billy was wheeled into an ambulance, she realises, her look falling on her calendar app. She doesn’t know what he’d think of them all. Remembers standing outside the hospital smoking cigarettes and telling Clive to fuck off, the look on his face, the memories swirling in her brain. She still thinks about it, sometimes, the way she felt, back then – she’s not very good at forgiveness – but at least they’re trying, she guesses.

Wait.

She doesn’t know how the thought gets into her head. The verb to try, maybe, or the days and months scrolling up and down in front of her eyes.

The last time, okay, she breathes, the last time was the Berrian trial. That was the end of March, because it was close to Clive’s birthday and they couldn’t properly celebrate until a couple weeks later, when the trial was over.

Then, she guesses, looking at the calendar, the next time should have been, well, almost three weeks ago.

Shit.

She didn’t get her period, three weeks ago, because she was in Birmingham for a trial and would remember if she had.

Shit. Shit, shit.

For the first time in days, she runs to the bathroom without the intent to puke. Throws the door of the bathroom cabinet open, swears she has an old one somewhere from when she thought there might have been pregnant, sometime back in November, and –

.

She tries to call him but stops herself. He’s in court.

Paces around the apartment, heart racing in her chest, doesn’t know what to do with herself. Grabs her car keys and runs out.

.

The village is different in the spring. Last summer, there were big blossoms and green trees, and heat that tainted the back of her neck. Now, the plants and branches have little buds hanging from them like the long-lost children of Christmas decorations, colours brought on by the light of the passing sun. The wind hits the back of her jacket; Martha pulls it tighter around her shoulders.

It feels a bit odd, being here. She drove instinctively, passing trucks and people going away for the weekend, and now, she doesn’t know what to say. She’s never been good at that kind of thing.

There’s an old lady a few tombs to her left, doing some cleaning. She takes the dry flowers and dead pots away, nicely setting down some new ones. Well, Martha doesn’t have any new flowers, she guesses, but at least she can clean, too.

There’s no bin bag so she sets out to tidy up a bit by placing all the rotten plants at her feet, tells herself she’ll take everything to the bigger bins outside when she leaves. She works for a good ten minutes, in silence, kind of likes the result. A pot of geraniums seems to have survived through winter so she keeps those, untangles the ribbon she left last year from a few dead plants and puts its back where it belongs: it looks better, now.

It looks better, and ten minutes have passed, and she still hasn’t figured out what to do with herself.

She guesses she doesn’t have to say anything, but then what was the point in coming here? It just felt like this imperative, this place where she needed to be, this one person that she needed to tell. It’s stupid, she knows: she doesn’t think he can hear her.

William Charles Lamb, she reads, again, like she did last year. Clive was there, she remembers, he took her in his arms and cried on her shoulder. She closes her eyes.

“I’m pregnant,” she says, pauses. “You’re the first one I told last time, so I –”

She trails off. It feels stupid, talking to herself like this, in a graveyard but –

“I miss you,” her voice whispers, shakes as she speaks, barely escaping her lips.

Instinctively, she feels herself sinking down to her knees, sitting on her heels to be at the grave’s height, be able to see the headstone when she looks straight ahead. She touches the ground, pulls out grass, wipes her hand on her jeans.

“I,” Martha starts, shakes her head. “It’s Clive’s,” she smiles, adds: “Again,” and almost laughs at the thought, at what Billy would have said if –

The sun hides behind the clouds; the ground becomes darker under her feet. She bites her lip, closing and opening her eyes.

“It’s different, though, we’ve been –”

She doesn’t know how to put it. Doesn’t want to tell Billy they’ve actually been trying because it sounds bloody ridiculous, even to her own ears. She wonders what the hell they were thinking, last September – drinking, perhaps, – when they decided to –

She smiles, lets out a short chuckle. “He gave me this,” she says, instead, and raises her right hand, turns it over to show the ring, the diamond on her finger. It almost makes her laugh and she thinks Billy would have found this funny, too. Romantic, though, and he was always a romantic at heart, wasn’t he? “Said it was his grandmother’s, I –”

She’s going off track, here, that’s not what she wanted to get at, that’s not –

“I think we’re going to keep it and I just –” she trails off, purses her lips. “I hope Clive knows what to do with it because I really, really don’t,” she says, catching herself laughing softly and feeling like she’s about to crawl down and cry at the same time. She breathes, closes her eyes, smiles, tells herself it’s the hormones. “Billy,” she whispers, to the wind.

She stays a bit more, silent, thinking. There’s a baby in her belly again and it feels weird, so, so weird to be back to that same point almost four years later, wondering what the hell she’s doing with her life, exactly. She’d thought it’d be clear. She’d thought if she did get pregnant again, she’d feel happy and ecstatic and would run to tell Clive. Instead, she’s here, in a graveyard, laughing and weeping at the same time, wondering what the hell came through her brain when she agreed to this. They’re not ready, by any means, they’re children themselves at most, and yet –

She smiles, quiet, her hand drawing circles on her stomach.

Eventually, she gets back up, a few minutes later when her tears have dried, wiping dirt off her knees.

“It helps, doesn’t it?”

Martha jumps at the voice. It’s female, stretches from a few metres away to her left. She turns to face it and sees the old lady from earlier, her face is tired but happy, the hood of her coat drawn to protect it from the wind.

“Talking to them, I mean,” she adds, her voice oddly cheery, lines moving on her features as she speaks. She walks a couple of steps closer to Martha, a couple of steps away from the grave she was looking at. “I’m not an idiot,” she smiles, again, nods. “I know they’re not going to answer, but –”

Martha smiles politely, standing awkwardly with her jeans dirty at the knees, and the nausea that’s threatening to come back triggered by the sudden move of her body.

“Arthur,” the old woman goes on, looking back at the grave behind her for a second. “My husband, we were always fighting, bickering over every little thing so now, it’s stupid but I come here and argue with him in my brain,” she smiles, shaking her head. “He made me laugh,” she adds, like an afterthought, trailing off.

“I’m sorry,” Martha says, because suddenly she really is, but -

“Oh, no, don’t be,” the woman starts, smiles. “I told him the bloody cigarettes would kill him,” she laughs and Martha smiles back, suddenly feeling very awkward about the pack that still sits in her pocket. “Anyway,” the woman says when her laughter dies out, looking away. “Sorry, I shouldn’t bother young people with my stories,” she starts backing away.

Martha smiles, shaking her head, slightly tempted to correct the use of the word young to refer to herself but then the woman turns around again, her gaze trailing over her face.

“You know, no one really knows what to do with them,” she says and it takes Martha a second to understand what she’s referring to, not the people in the graves but – “They come out of you and you love them, and you do your best so that they don’t turn into drug addicts or murderers,” she says, adds as an afterthought: “Most of them don’t.” Martha can’t help but let out a short laugh, covering her mouth to repress it.

“I,” she pauses, smiles. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Congratulations.”

.

Martha tries to call Clive again when she gets home, but she needs to tell him face to face so she makes it to the pub at quarter past six. Clive’s leaning against the bar to place his order; she snakes her way past the crowd to stand next to him, touches his arm to signal her presence.

 “Hey,” he says, smiling. Her arm brushes against his. “Feeling better? You definitely look like you’re feeling better,” he says, trying to get Pat – the barman –’s attention. Pat nods at the both of them and raises a couple of fingers, mouths: two minutes.

Clive nods, glances at Martha. God, she forgot: he still thinks she’s sick. “Yeah, much better,” she says. “Clive –”

“Hey there!” Pat interrupts, reaching over to them. “What can I get you-s?”

“Lager for me,” Clive says, turning to her. “G&T again?”

And Martha nods, automatically. Over the last few weeks, it’s oddly become her drink of choice after years of red wine, and –

Shit, she thinks. Is she the only idiot who craves fucking gin and tonics? Is that why - 

Plus: shit, again; she can’t drink. It occurs to Martha that she needs to pull Clive aside so when Pat quickly sets his beer on the counter, she opens her mouth and grabs Clive’s forearm. Before she can say anything, though, his phone starts ringing and he rolls his eyes, pulls away. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this, do you mind?” he tells her, sliding his wallet over to her as he grabs his beer, stepping away and disappearing into the crowd.

Pat smiles at her, about to grab a glass. They know each other quite well, the both of them, ever since Pat took over the George about five years ago. The man, as far as Martha’s seen, knows pretty much everything there is to know about every barrister in London. He knows about her and Clive, as a matter of fact, since about three months ago when he caught them in a rather uncomfortable position late one night in the corridor that leads to the ladies. ‘Get a feckin’ room,’ he said in his characteristic Irish twang but still laughed on his way out.

“Wait,” Martha says, now, before she can really think. Pat stops mid-movement, throws her a questioning look. “Just tonic, please,” she adds, running a hand over her face, wondering how the hell she’s going to tell Clive, now.

Pat nods, putting back the bottle of gin and handing her a small Sprite. “Work tomorrow?” he asks.

“No,” Martha says, automatically, because no, she doesn’t have work tomorrow, tomorrow’s Saturday and even though she is in court on Monday, she could have a drink but –

“Then, what’s the –” she hears him say and abruptly stop, mid-thought, suddenly staring her up and down. It last for a short moment, she tries to hold his gaze but can’t, bites her lip, glances down, avoids his look, hands him Clive’s card.

It’s too late, though, and maybe it’s just written on her face, she thinks, because Pat knows. “Well, shit,” he laughs, taking the card from her hand. He slides the machine to her, she types in Clive’s pin, automatically, hands it back, looking up. “Yous don’t waste any time, do yeh?” he laughs and leaves her smiling awkwardly, pocketing the card and receipt back.

Martha’s pretty tempted to argue that it kind of took them over fifteen years to get here so time is, indeed, a thing that they’re pretty good at wasting but holds her tongue. Instead, she looks up and says: “Well, he doesn’t know,” pointing at the direction in which Clive left. “So, don’t tell him, okay?”

Pat laughs. “Hey, what kind of barman do you think I am?”

.

Over the next thirty minutes or so, she gets caught up talking to Nick (who ended up taking this morning’s bail hearing – she thanks him, profusely) as well as Bethany and Jake (who lament that they don’t see her enough, these days), so it’s a while before it occurs to her that she really needs to get her hands on Clive again. She can’t see him anywhere so she decides to step out for a smoke and call him, see if he’s already gone home. She’s got his wallet, she thinks, so he can’t have gone that far.

She leans against the wall outside the pub and fishes for her pack of cigarettes, pulls it out and: “Fuck,” she says, closing her eyes.

They’re not cigarettes. They’re nicotine gums. She threw her pack in the bin when she left the cemetery and got the gums at Boots before coming here. God, she hates being pregnant already.

Before Martha can reach for her phone to try and call him, though, Clive pushes the door of the pub open, materialises in front of her eyes. He looks happy, there’s a smile on his face and she wants to kiss him, Martha realises, so she does: a long, sweet kiss – he tastes like the beer he’s just had, she lingers against his lips. “Sorry, was in the toilet,” he says when she pulls away, takes his wallet back as she hands it to him. “Pat said you were looking for me?”

And, Martha almost laughs. Barman’s honour, my arse, she thinks, rolling her eyes. Clive is looking at her, slightly amused; she bites her lip, asks: “What?” curious.

“I don’t know,” he says, grins. “You look like you had a good day.”

“I did,” she smiles, although, granted, that’s a matter of opinion, but –

His hand easily finds her hip, the small of her back, keeping her close. “Do you want to go home and celebrate that?” he teases, obviously oblivious to the thoughts that swirl in her head and –

“Clive,” she says, catches his gaze. “I’m pregnant.”

And, with that, he freezes. Gapes. For what feels like an eternity, Clive doesn’t say anything. Just stares at her until slowly, she sees him bring his hand to his mouth, then drop it again. “What?” he asks, looking up.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeats, holding his gaze.

And, it’s funny: he reminds her of herself, this morning, the way he can’t seem to formulate coherent thoughts. This isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, should have gotten better at it, somehow, and yet - “Are you sure?” he pauses, expressionless, motionless.  

She smirks. “As sure as three tests from three different brands can be, Clive.”

And suddenly, it clicks, seems to down on him, somehow: Clive smiles. Beams, in fact, a sort of stunned, speechless, disbelieving look on his face – a stark contrast with last time, Martha guesses. His hands rise in front of his mouth again, then run over his face, the back of his head – he just keeps smiling, shaking his head at her. There’s something he’s trying to contain, though, she sees it in his eyes. Like he’s not sure, doesn’t want to –

“Do you want to keep it?” he asks, a similar question but a completely different intent from last time, she can tell. “Cause if you don’t, that’s fine, I know what we said but if you’ve changed your mind, I don’t want to force you into –”

She laughs. He’s really trying; it’s almost cute. “Yes, of course, we’re keeping it, Clive, but we’re not out of the –”

-woods is what she meant to say. He’s not listening, though. Clive doesn’t seem to care about anything else that actually makes any logical sense, right this minute. When he speaks, Martha swears she can see stars in his eyes. “We’re having a baby.”

She wants to rolls her eyes but can’t help but smile, bites her lip. Martha tries to moderate his enthusiasm; she’s miscarried before, after all, and what if – “Clive –”

It doesn’t register. Everything kind of happens very quickly but she feels his hands by her sides and her feet being lifted the ground as she half laughs/half screams her lungs out. “We’re having a baby!” he shouts, loud in the street to whoever is willing to hear, kisses her neck, her mouth, every inch of her skin he can reach – they’re in fucking public, for God’s sake, outside the pub, no less, and yet she can’t help but laugh –

“Put me down!” she screams, laughing, but he doesn’t seem like he’s going to do that anytime soon, instead swirls around with her in his arms, his hands under her thighs. “Clive you’re forty years old with a bad knee, put me –”

“I love you,” he smiles, kisses her lips. Gently lowers her down on the ground and holds her so close she feels his limbs everywhere around hers. “I fucking love you, Martha Costello.”

She’s always liked smiling kisses, the way she can feel his lips curve up against hers, like nothing could ever get in their way. Clive leans in again, his hand traveling under her shirt, against her skin, covering her midriff.

“We’re having a baby, Marth,” she hears him say in her ear and she knows she should be more careful but nods, again, against her better judgment and beams up at him, too.

“Yes, Clive, we’re having a baby,” she breathes.

Chapter Text

xi.

Hey, Mummy, what is fair?(…) And, where do we get air? And, Mummy, can I have that big elephant over there?

Dat Dere – Bobby Timmons

As covered by Rickie Lee Jones

She wishes it could have been a game of chess. Pawns, queens, and kings across the board, knights moving in Ls according to rules that she could have learnt. Could have already known, perhaps, going in.

She would have liked it to be a song. It would have had rhythm, something to fill her ears when the shouts got too loud and she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Sean used to fiddle with a guitar back in the day – because of course, he did – and he couldn’t sing to save his life but frankly, it never mattered. Martha thinks she would have gone for Zombie, given the choice. Eerie. For the anger and the opinions, mostly.

Now, though, it’s a low ambiance bar with dark, purple lighting that looks somewhere between a cocktail lounge and a strip club without strippers; the kind of place where people in suits snort coke in the bathrooms. Martha closes her eyes to the music, lets her head loll from left to right, fingers dancing over her glass.

In another universe, she might have liked that song. Liked it like she likes rock, and guitar riffs, and boys singing about girls. She might have danced, even.

Oh, you’re so naïve, yet so –

Clive woke her up in the middle of the night, once; she heard a whisper, his breath tickling the skin of her stomach, let out something between a sigh and a groan. It felt like four in the morning; it wasn’t the first time.

‘It doesn’t even have a brain, yet,’ she said, rolling her eyes and turning on her side so that he couldn’t reach. ‘Let alone ears to hear you. Go back to sleep.’

She heard him huff a laugh as he climbed back up next to her, spooning and dropping a kiss against her hair. ‘It’s fine. Don’t talk to her. She’ll sound all posh like me.’

Clive had decided on the sex of the baby literally the minute after Martha had told him about the pregnancy, against all laws of biology and evidence. She kept repeating to him that if they were indeed having a baby, they probably wouldn’t even know at the first ultrasound, let alone now when she wasn’t even sure the bloody thing would make it in the first place. This information did not, however, seem to register in his brain. Favouring sleep over another nonsensical conversation of but I know, Marth, trust me, she closed her eyes and tried not to smile too large, listening to the regular sound of his breaths behind in her ear.

Yeah, Martha thinks, now, eyeing the light gradation of white in her drink. So naïve, yet so -

.

She likes that word, naïve, because it fits. For weeks on end, all she thought – all she could think about, really - was that she was going to lose it. Sounds a bit ridiculous, in hindsight (but everything always does, in hindsight, that’s the whole point of hindsight) but at the time, it seemed to be the only thing that could possibly go wrong.

CW slides onto the stool next to hers, eyeing the drinks on the counter, eyeing Martha’s too, as she sets her bag on a hook below.

I may say it was your fault, ‘cause I know you could have done more. Oh, you’re so naïve, yet so –

Martha hates that song, she decides. It’s vehement and accusatory, and no, she couldn’t have done more. She did everything she could, in fact, did what she thought was most important.

Maybe that’s the problem, isn’t it?

.

CW doesn’t say anything. Or at least, not yet. They’re coming, Martha knows, the questions, explanations, perhaps drunken admissions. When she got here, earlier, she ordered two gin and tonics. Two, because it seemed rude to ask someone else over on a Tuesday night and not have alcohol waiting.

‘Wine?’ Clive offered, innocently, one night when Martha got home after a very, very long day, forgetting –

He chuckled when she looked daggers at him, putting the glass away.

You see? Martha Costello, she’s the kind of person who goes all in. She’s a terrible poker player for this particular reason, because always going all in works very well until it doesn’t, until your bluff is called. When she found out she was pregnant, she went all in, too (or all out, more like), quit the smoking and the drinking on the spot, because she’d already lost one, after all, wasn’t going to half-arse this.

It’s not that she thought one drink or one fag would kill it, per se, it’s that she half-arses things like the Tony Paddick prosecution or the race for Head of Chambers: things she doesn’t really want.

So, she quit the drinking as soon as she found out and yet, tonight, she finds herself in a bar with CW. The other woman reaches for her glass, brings it to her lips; Martha toys with hers, tracing the rim with the tip of her finger. The ice has melted, by now; she kept passing it between her right and left hand for far too long, watching water slowly raise the liquid line. A sip, a cough, CW sets the glass back down. 

“Jesus Christ,” she says, throwing Martha a look. “Is there even any tonic in this?”

Martha glances down at her hands and answers with a shrug. She asked for a double, triple maybe. ‘Get me drunk,’ she told the barman behind the counter.

Clive stood. Clive shouted in the middle of the her living room before the volume of his voice decreased and the brutality of his words didn’t. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, Clive, and he laughed in her face. Martha fights to blur out the memories, the ones she wishes she were old enough to forget. A while back, she’d thought to herself that they had yet to bloodily argue and wished she didn’t have to be there when it happened. Well, she was. And, it hurt. And, she’s not weak, she tells herself; he’s not worth crying over. That glaze over her eyes, right now? It’s just the hormones.

It’s such an ugly thing, for someone so beautiful, that every time you’re on his side –

Oh for fuck’s sake, she thinks and: “Will you change that fucking song?” she suddenly barks at the bloke behind the bar. CW sniggers, throwing Martha a curious look – the barman rolls his eyes and hits next on Spotify.

.

It’s a few minutes before CW speaks again, glancing at Martha’s face, the look in her eyes, as she inspects her drink on the table. “You know there are actual medical procedures for what you’re trying to do, here?” she says, laughing to herself. “1967, date mean anything to you?”

Martha clenches her jaw, sighs.

CW found out a few weeks ago: different trials, same afternoon, they ran into each other in the robbing room. Martha was taking her wig and gown off; Caroline was putting hers on. An offer for a fag, a weird look thrown sideways. Martha’s fingers and brain still itched for a nicotine hand-holder, back then, so it was hard to turn down. The other woman shrugged as she took one from her pack and walked over to the window, eyes set on Martha.

‘So, you’re keeping it,’ she declared, blowing smoke out into the air. It was lashing rain, outside, that day.

‘Keeping what?’

And it’s funny, really, but in that moment, Martha was truthfully oblivious, still focused on her case, the somewhat candid question actually genuine. CW rolled her eyes, smiled. ‘Please,’ she insisted, smirking, made Martha look up at her. ‘You’re not drinking, not smoking and I have to tell you that those tits,’ she said, generally pointing at her chest. ‘Don’t fit into that bra anymore, darling.’

Instinctively, Martha looked down her body and tried to pull her blazer tighter across her chest, which frankly didn’t fit anymore, either. She’s in this awkward phase: isn’t exactly showing, yet, but feels like her body’s stocked up about a stone of water overnight in really odd places.

It would have been pointless to lie so Martha held CW’s gaze and nodded, once. ‘Yes.’ We are, she thought, thought of Clive back then and we’re having a baby, and bit her lip to hide a smile.

CW herself grinned, though, something enigmatic as she threw her cigarette out the window. ‘Ah,’ she breathed, grabbing a binder from the bench, along with her water bottle. ‘Interesting.’

Martha glances at CW, now, and sighs, hands flat against the counter. She’s still wearing his ring, she notices, doesn’t know if she should take it off, after what he said. Doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to.

“Haven’t drunk any,” she admits, nodding at her drink. Martha’s not stupid, isn’t trying to administer an abortion to herself with enough G&Ts to go into a coma; she’s just trying to decide if she wants one. She’s going all in, here, so one G&T, one abortion: it’s a bit of the same thing. If she drinks, she’s decided, she’ll book an appointment. Her fingers have been hovering over her glass for the last hour because of this.

Again, she’s always been terrible at making decisions.  

.

Three years ago, she remembers, after telling Billy, she kept wondering if the fateful day when he would ask who the father was would ever come. She wouldn’t answer, she knew, telling herself that she was covering for Clive when, in fact, she was also probably covering for herself. CW never asked who the father was, this time around, either because she already knew or most likely because she didn’t care. Martha does, though. It’s funny, really, how with all the men she’s had in her life, it’s always been him. Well, maybe not, maybe funny isn’t exactly the right word.

Without meaning to, she glances at her phone, watching the screen as it stays black, no calls coming through. She has service, though; it says there, five bars. She sighs.

Ever since Clive took up the habit of calling her every night after last June, phones have oddly turned into a thing of theirs, whenever they’re apart, his voice familiar against her ear. He went to Birmingham for a trial a few weeks back and she lay in bed with her phone in her hand, closing her eyes to the sound of his voice. ‘So, how was your day?’ he asked, dutifully, after she’d listened to him go on about his big criminals and their big trials for quite some time.

‘No court today, didn’t do much,’ she said with a sigh, pushing the book she’d been attempting to read aside and pulling her legs closer to her body. It was starting to get hot again, in London, her thighs and calves only covered by a sheet. She’d already started lying to him, back then, or half-lying, maybe. Martha hadn’t been to court, that day, sure, but she’d worked on a lot of things and - ‘Attempted to get lunch and threw everything up. Again,’ she sighed. ‘I’m pregnant and I’m bloody losing weight at this rate.’

The guilt, it almost killed her when she heard a sympathetic smile in Clive’s voice. He apologised: ‘Sorry,’ in her ear, as if the vomiting was his fault. Well, she guessed, it was half his fault, admittedly, and sometimes, especially when she was retching over a toilet, she kind of thought it was entirely his goddamn fault. ‘Was it this bad last time?’ she heard him ask, quietly, after a beat.

‘Honestly, I don’t remember,’ she spoke, briefly glancing out her window. ‘I think we’re biologically programmed to forget so that we want to make more or something.’

There was an awkward pause on his end of the line; she didn’t say anything. ‘Well,’ Clive breathed, moving on. ‘I read it’ll get better in a few weeks.’

‘You read?’ she laughed, heard him chuckle on the other end, too. ‘You, what? Googled morning sickness on my behalf?’

‘Educated myself.’

Martha smiled, wishing he were on the other side of her bed, wishing she could simply push herself up to kiss his lips. ‘Well, I hope you’re not giving me false hope.’

‘You know me,’ he laughed, paused. ‘I could never lie to you.’

Yeah, that. She thinks, now, looking at the bottles of alcohol lined up behind the bar in front of her. Whatever. Fuck it, she decides, fuck him.

It’s impulsive, angry; she grabs her glass and lifts it up to her lips.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” CW says, though, stops her before the alcohol touches her tongue. “I think it’s like the cigarettes,” she breathes, shrugging. “Doesn’t actually make them go away, just makes them a bit, er, special,” she pauses, drinks. “Bit of a retard, you know?”

CW is entirely beside the point, here, and Martha rolls her eyes at her use of the word retard but she does set the glass down. It was a spur of the moment decision and the moment has now passed.

“What happened?” CW asks, finally catching her look. “Why are we here?”

“Do you care?”

“Not really. But sitting here in silence while you decide whether or not to keep that baby of yours isn’t very entertaining.”

Martha scoffs, closes her eyes. “Yeah,” she breathes, looking down at her glass. “Well.”

CW can fuck off, as far as she’s concerned, because really, she can’t say, now, can she? Martha definitely can sit here and talk about the weather, or Harriet, but she can’t speak of what happened. It would mean opening her coat to the enemy and showing him exactly where her wounds are. She needs to be strong, collected, for the battlefield to come, needs to win this, now more than ever.  

.

Because yes, that’s another case that fell into her lap, one afternoon. She’d just gotten back from court – nauseous, having hardly slept the night before and feeling like all she wanted to do was to go home to a shower and her bed, and possibly a massage, if Clive was so inclined (he had better be). She walked into Chambers just intending to pick up a few files before heading home when Charlotte caught her in the corridor to her room. ‘Oh, hi, Miss,’ she said, blocking her way out. ‘Your con is here.’

‘What con?’ she frowned.

‘It’s a good case, Miss. I’m sure it’ll interest you.’

A hand on her hip, she caught Charlotte’s gaze but God, was that girl hard to read. ‘What’s the case, Charlotte?’

The other woman took a moment to respond, under the pretence of sipping her coffee. In hindsight, again, Martha thinks she should have guessed something was wrong right then and there, and walked out but yeah, it’s always in hindsight, isn’t it? ‘It’s an appeal, Miss. Execution murder. Client says he’s innocent.’

Martha rolled her eyes, sighed. ‘God, do I look like I enjoy defending gang members, Charlotte? Why is this coming in as an appeal anyway, who was the barrister?’

Charlotte smiled, then, but didn’t say anything for a bit. ‘With all due respect, Miss, you should listen to the solicitor. Do it for me,’ she just added, with a wink, before moving out of Martha’s way.

.

Billy used to lie a lot. He lied to her, lied to Clive, to Alan, Harriet, of course. Martha doesn’t think anyone ever took it personally. It was just Billy being Billy, and them scrapping the surface of his smiles and: “come on, you know you want to, Miss.” Maybe Clive did take it personally, though, maybe that was the source of everything that ever went wrong, wasn’t it?

Charlotte doesn’t lie, not really, except that one time, she guesses. By omission, maybe, because Martha walked into the meeting room and met Lara, shook her hand before sitting down and pulling out her legal pad, setting it on the table between them.

‘I just want to state out right I’m not making any promises,’ she told the solicitor, absentmindedly swirling her pen between her fingers. ‘But tell me about your client.’

Lara didn’t look like she understood the question. In fact, she frowned, seeming lost and unsure what to say. Her eyes narrowed on Martha for a second before she sighed, heavily, looking down. She spoke like educated people do in Manchester, her accent tame and upper class. ‘Your clerk didn’t tell you, did she?’

‘Tell me what?’

Lara stayed silent for a bit, looking for the right way to put this. Clue: if you’re looking for the right way to put something, Martha muses, it’s because there is none. If there was, actually, maybe she would have told Clive right away, and none of this would have happened.

For the record, she’d like to state that she didn’t say yes back then. She actually walked out, at first, when Lara said: ‘I represent Sean McBride.’

She said: ‘No,’ simply, politely and went on to find Charlotte in the corridor, stood in front of her with her arm extended to the opposite wall, blocking her way. Not so politely. ‘Don’t you ever dare ambushing me like that again –’

‘Miss, listen to her, I think you need to –’

‘Oh, don’t tell me what I need to do, I –’ she started, stopped.

Lara walked out of the meeting room, just then, throwing the both of them an aggravated look. She was beautiful, Martha noted, tall, brunette, determined; Martha caught herself wondering where Sean had found her. ‘Look,’ she insisted, catching Martha’s gaze. ‘The appeal’s in eight weeks, he antagonised his last three briefs to the point of madness, and then fired them all. You know the case back to back, I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t a life or death situation.’

Martha scoffed, rolled her eyes. ‘It’s always a bloody life or death situation with him.’

‘Then come and tell him in person,’ Lara said, her arms crossed over her chest. ‘I know you’ve been to visit him once already. Please. If he hears you say it, maybe I can find someone else we can work with.’

.

Martha didn’t sleep, that night. Lay in bed with her eyes wide open for hours staring at the ceiling, trying not to toss and turn too much so as not to wake Clive. She had already told Sean. Last June, when she came by and asked him to live but said that she was done. He’d been sad, she remembers. Maybe her speech just didn’t sink in. He’d kept writing to her and she’d kept ignoring him so there was no reason why it would sink in this time, was there? It was about 4 a.m. when she felt Clive turn on his side, eyeing the side of her face in the dark. ‘Marth, what’s going on?’ he asked, his voice groggy and full of sleep, eyes half-closed.

That’s when she should have told him. In hindsight, again, it seems obvious, because everything else after that became an omission, then an outright lie, when the questions became more pressing. If she had told him then, he would have been annoyed, maybe, would have told her to forget about it, and she would have been able to explain that it wasn’t that easy. That she felt guilty. That potentially, she could win this. That she was terrified. That a part of her wanted to forget all about this, too, and let Sean sort out his bloody mess on his own. She’d told Clive about him, already, and about having him by her side when her father got sick.

They would have worked it out, she thinks.  

‘Just something at work,’ she said, though, turning around to face him. At the time, she thought she wasn’t even sure she’d go, tomorrow, so there was no reason for them to fight over something that might not even happen. Her right hand was under the pillow, face close enough to his that she could feel his breath on her skin. ‘Nothing important,’ she lied.

Martha leaned forward and kissed Clive, then, stayed like this for a while, unmoving, her forehead against his. She tried to close her eyes but every time she did, thoughts came back to haunt her, so she decided to change tactics, in the end, hooked her thigh over his hip and put her hand on his shoulder, trying to push him to lie down on his back. Clive smiled. ‘You need to sleep, Marth.’

She chuckled slightly, her mouth millimetres away from his. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Isn’t that what the doctor said?’ he asked but still, she felt his hand travel up her side as he gave in, lying back, pulling her above him. ‘Rest and no stress?’

Yeah, right, that was what the doctor had indeed said, a few weeks back when she’d gone in to confirm the pregnancy and Martha really doesn’t know why she decided to disclose this information to Clive upon her return, an information which he had immediately stored in his brain and decided to use every time he thought she was either working too much, stressing over something pointless or sleeping too little.

‘Clive,’ Martha laughed, her mouth tracing the line of his jaw, body pressed against his. ‘Are you actually turning down sex?’

He pulled her face up to meet his, hands against her cheeks and rose to kiss her, open-mouthed, stubble grazing her lips; she felt him harden against her thigh. ‘That is not what I said,’ he countered and she laughed, the sound dying against his mouth.

.

It was 8 a.m. sharp the next morning when she knocked on the door of Nick’s room, standing awkwardly at the threshold when he told her to come in, not really sure what to do with herself. He was standing behind his desk, gaze averted down, shuffling papers that were spread in a disorganised mess, lifting files and binders until finally, he seemed to have found what he was looking for. Slipping the sheet into his briefcase, he finally looked up at her. They were alone, that morning, the other barrister who shared his room having gone to court already.

‘I have a favour to ask,’ Martha said, biting her lip. Nick smiled, sat down in his chair.

‘I love it when you have favours to ask me.’

Martha attempted a tight smile, her gaze unfocused, look dancing around the room, wondering how she was going to put this. ‘I need you to do a con with me,’ she breathed, catching his gaze. ‘It’s an appeal. Pretty high profile. If I take it, I’m probably going to need a junior.’

It was the bait, she knew, but they worked well together. She liked having him by her side.

‘Who’s the client?’

She held his gaze, let it slip past her lips. ‘Sean McBride.’

There was a moment of silence, an uncertainty in Nick’s look. They’d never spoken about it before, the case that made her stop wanting to practice for six months, and Nick had never asked, until now. Martha’s not stupid, though, knew he had to have heard about it through the grapevine - the rumours had gone wild. ‘Are you going to take it?’ he asked, catching her gaze.

‘I don’t know.’

‘And you want me in the room because …’ he began and let the rest of his sentence hang, looking at her like he knew that someday, a bomb was going to go off.

She sighed. ‘Because I know you’ll tell me if I’m making a mistake.’

.

So, a few hours later, she sat at a table in front of him, Nick by her side. Sean hadn’t changed much, haircut just a tad more askew, his eyes tired when he glanced up at her. It was May, late afternoon, the light coming through the bars at the windows, drawing shadows on their faces. Instinctively, Martha crossed her arms, then purposefully uncrossed them when she remembered that once, someone had told her it made her look defensive.

Sean glanced at her, then at Nick.

‘Who’s he?’

‘My junior’

‘Do you trust him?’

Martha rolled her eyes, sat back in her chair. Crossed her arms again. ‘He’s bound by confident -’

Sean moved quickly, his palm pounding, once, on the table, a rattle of metal against metal following the movement. Ever since his assault on Clive, they weren’t taking his cuffs off in the presence of anybody. She jumped a bit, tried to hide it behind a sigh. ‘No, you don’t get it, it’s life or death for me in here, Mar, I –’

She closed her eyes for millisecond and thought: fuck that. ‘Don’t,’ she said, leaning forward and setting both her hands on the table. He backed away. ‘You lied to me, and then you lied again, and again, and then you ended up here. Cut the act. Or I’m out.’

Sean caught her glare and held it for what felt like forever while her heart hammered in her chest. He smiled, eventually, a sad smile like the one he used to give her when they were sixteen and she said no, I can’t come, tonight. ‘Did you read my letters?’ he asked, quiet, looking down at his hands.

‘No.’

He smiled, again, glance catching hers, huffed. ‘You should have,’ he said. ‘They were good.’

And all the while she sat there looking at him, she kept expecting him to ask why she was even here in the first place, even after she’d told him she was done, a year ago. But that was her question, she guesses, not his. Her question about her own weaknesses and inability to let people go. He needed her help; she thought she owed it to him.

‘You remember that shop down the street at my Mum’s,’ he recounted, suddenly, that same sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips; he looked like he did when she knew him. ‘We used to get chips and cans of coke, and you’d skip school and we’d eat in bed. Watch films on VHS and, well, the rest is probably not suitable for this guy’s ears,’ Sean added, pointing at Nick and – ‘no offense, mate –’ he laughed as Martha threw him a glare, tensed in her seat.

‘What’s your poin–’

‘I was so fucking in love with you, Martha Costello’ he breathed, shook his head. ‘Prittiest girl in our year.’ He bit his bottom lip; she noticed it was redder in that particular spot, guessed he probably did it a lot, that and biting his nails raw. ‘I should have told you sooner,’ Sean added, trying to catch her glance. ‘I should have gone to Manchester with you, I shouldn’t have lied to you –’

Martha shook her head. ‘Sean -’

‘I’m still so fucking in love with you, you know?’

She heard the words and felt a punch in her gut. He’d said that once before, just as she’d finally found the strength to walk away. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to look at Nick, so she stared at her hands instead, the ring on her finger. She played with it, a little, doesn’t think Sean noticed.

‘What do you want?’ Martha asked, looking up, jaw set and eyes fixed on him. She pursed her lips, tried to breathe.

‘You’re the only one I trust, Mar,’ he said, weakly, and that sad smile again, she couldn’t forget it. ‘You know I didn’t do this.’

She was silent on the way out, as the guard showed them through the gates and as they made their way back to their lockers, door after door. Nick waited until they were in the car park to ask: ‘Are you taking it?’

‘Yes,’ she said. The word rolled off Martha’s tongue.

She turned around to beep her car open, heard his words spoken to her back. ‘You’re making a mistake.’

She heard the beep, too, sighed. ‘I know.’

.

She didn’t tell Clive. He was happy, that night, had won a case, so she didn’t tell him. And she didn’t tell him the day after that, or the day after that, or all of the days that followed. The more the weeks passed the more it felt like a ticking bomb about to go off. He’d see her working on her brief and would look over her shoulder; she’d shut the binder, say: ‘Confidential. Can’t tell you.’

He’d laugh, kiss her neck, her shoulder, say: ‘Don’t care. Come to bed.’

It lasted over a month. She convinced herself that eight weeks to the trial wouldn’t be long and that by the time it would hit the news, she would already be in it, and he’d understand. She convinced herself that it was none of his business to begin with. She convinced herself of a lot of things.

Tonight, the night when she sees CW, though, Clive said he couldn’t come by. Big trial the next day, something. Yet, around seven, Martha heard the jiggle of his keys in the lock of her door as she sat at her kitchen table, gaze buried in paperwork. She automatically shut the binder when he came into the room, smiled up at him.

‘Hey. I thought you were working.’

‘No,’ he paused, crossing his arms. ‘But you are.’

She doesn’t know what it was, the look in his eyes that he was trying to hide or the tone of his voice but she instinctively sat up in her chair, tensed.

‘What are you working on?’

‘Brief.’

‘Who’s the client?’

Martha narrowed her gaze on him, over his face. Clive looked restless, tired, dark circles under his eyes, couldn’t seem to focus. The sun was still up, she remembers, those late summer nights like the one when he took her to a gig and kissed her under a storm. With a mug in hand, she rose from her chair and walked around the table, placed it in the sink. Turned again and stood with her back to the countertop, crossed her arms as well. ‘Girl called Jessica Kabacinski. Why?’

Clive let out a short laugh; it chilled her to the bone. Moved over and stood tall, her kitchen table between them – it reminded her of that morning after Billy died, that morning when she showed him the bruises on her skin. ‘Don’t you fucking lie to me,’ he said.

She flinched. The anger that radiated from him made Martha stop in her tracks, something felt like it dropped at the pit of her stomach. She looked at Clive, his demeanour, the way he moved and the way he breathed, the tension in his limbs. ‘You’ve been drinking,’ she noted, matter-of-fact, turned her back to him. Spat it like an insult and thought: please, let’s make this about you and not about me -

‘Oh, don’t try and fucking deflect,’ he swore, loud – almost shouted – she didn’t want to look at him, faced the window above the kitchen sink and closed her eyes. She could feel a lump forming in her throat, tears rising behind her lids. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?’ he added, shook his head in what appeared to be disbelief. ‘Fucking look at me when I’m talking to you -’

Martha knew where this was going. Knew full well where this was going already, doesn’t even know why she just kept lying (buried, deep in her made up tales) when she turned around again and said: ‘Find out what, Clive? I don’t have time to –’

He shouted. The first real shout that evening. ‘Sean fucking McBride, Martha!’

And in her head, then, there are two alternate endings to this story. There’s the real one and there’s the fantasy one, the one that she’d tell CW, if forced, or later, when the time came and the woman wasn’t representing the Crown in Sean’s trial anymore, when they could talk, and Martha could explain. In that version of events, the one in Martha’s head, everything she said came out right, after this, and she was combative - with each punch Clive threw, another one was thrown back. In the end, they argued it out and made up in bed, like that time when he called her a hypocrite and she called him a coward and he fucked her against their office door.

This is not one of those times, though.

No, instead, here, she became the main offender rather than an accomplice, the lies she’d told hers alone to admit.

Her fingers stopped tapping their silent rhythm against the skin of her arm; they stilled as she watched Clive. Martha didn’t speak, for a while, just held his gaze. ‘Sean’s my client,’ she said, eventually, because there was no room for denial. She pleaded – the first time in her life, maybe. Clive breathed heavily, murderous glare in his eyes. ‘I don’t see how that’s any of your business,’ Martha added. ‘I don’t work for you.’

Because the truth was: she’d prepared for this – the moment he’d find out, the arguments that she’d give him. In her head (and in that dream, alternate reality of hers), it’d sounded convincing but in reality, everything fell flat, that night; Clive laughed in her face - she shifted. ‘You’ve got to be joking!’ he snapped, shook his head. She tried to catch his gaze; he didn’t let her.

She raised her voice in annoyance, defensive (yet another mistake). ‘Alright, so you’re jealous,’ she called out his own shortcomings, or at least thought she did. ‘We’re adults, Clive. Deal with it.’

And, really, it all felt like a crescendo, like a rollercoaster, inching higher and higher with every word that was said. Martha moved, walked around the table to make it to the other side of the room but he stood stock in her way, refused to budge. The volume of his voice scaled up when he spoke, she recalls. ‘You can’t be serious, Martha. You really think that’s what it’s about?’

And the thing is: even then, she knew that it wasn’t. But jealousy is always easier to handle than betrayal and she’s not really a nice person. Has never been one. Martha Costello is defensive and angry but to her credit, looking back in retrospect at the events that followed, he was worse, she thinks. ‘I kissed him you know,’ she said, faking detachment as she stood. Smirked when she saw the flicker of hurt on his face. ‘After he attacked you. Not bad, actually, butterflies in my stomach and all –’

‘Good. You want to fuck him? Do it. For all I care.’

And that, that did make her look up, catch his gaze. She froze. His voice had broken as he spoke, like stuck at the back of his throat. It’s stupid, really, but she doesn’t think she’d ever heard him speak like that before. Speak like that about them.

Later, Clive went on to say a lot of things, that night. Shouted a lot of things. Martha stood still, mostly, couldn’t find words, too busy trying not to hear his. She remembers quotes, more than arguments. Things he said, things she said. For instance: he said that it wasn’t about Sean. He said it was about her. ‘You think you can handle losing, Marth? Want me to remind you what happened last time or are the nightmares enough? Bloody fucking success, was it?’

And, she would have cried, if she could. Would have fought back. I can’t believe you’d use that – and: I almost got fucking raped, Clive - but instead, a broken sound just came out of her mouth, pleading. Please, don’t, please, ‘Clive –’

‘You do know it’s not just you anymore, now, don’t you?’

Her hand fell on her stomach; she glared daggers at him. The words almost stumbled out of her mouth: oh, don’t you dare use the baby against me! You pushed me out of Chambers, Sean had nothing to do with that, she should have said. Instead, though: ‘Clive, please, just listen to me –’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Martha, he’s guilty. He’s fucking guilty, one way or another, and you know it. Why don’t you –’

‘One way or another?!’ she threw back at him. She hated the shouting, it made her look desperate. ‘Is that how you people work?’ she asked. ‘They must all be guilty, one way or another? Sean’s not guilty, Clive, I am. I left him out to dry,’ she said, tried to explain. A moment of truth about how she felt, a moment short lived. ‘I need to do this, that’s what loyalty is. A concept which you, with your education and your parents’ millions in the bank don’t seem to have a fucking clue about -’

‘Loyalty, Marth, really?’ Clive shook his head at her. Everything that she tried to say came out wrong, so she went back to being walled up in her own silence, her own thoughts. Just let him shout at her. Maybe that was better; she certainly deserved it. ‘You lied to me and you’re lying again, and again, and you’re lying to cover it up, Jesus Christ, Martha!’ he yelled. ‘You lied to me about Billy, about Sean, about Jordan Sinclair’s fucking witness –’

‘If this is about Billy –’

‘Look, I get it, alright?!’ Clive yelled again, then paused. She went quiet, tried to take a step towards him but he copied her movements with another step back. She stopped. ‘I care,’ he insisted, glancing up and catching her gaze. ‘And you don’t,’ he paused. ‘You say you’re scared but you just don’t give a fuck, do you? About me,’ he sighed, shaking his head at her. He was smiling, she remembers, sad and cold, framed by the lines on his face. ‘Or about Billy, or about the baby –’

Her bottom lip was trembling; she bit it to hold back tears, thinks he saw that, because –

‘Right,’ he just said, shook his head at her. ‘You want to cry? Cry. Cry like when you lost the baby last time because of a fucking client you didn’t want to let go. You self-destruct. We both know that.’

Her mouth opened to say – well, she didn’t know what to say, really. Just wanted to go back in time, wanted –

‘If you lose the baby this time, let me tell you it’ll be your own fucking fault -’

She stood, still. Tried to interject something but her words fell short of anything that could be said. ‘You fucking asshole,’ she just muttered, glared.

Clive got quiet, then, too, the both of them frozen in time. If she had to point to one moment, one moment in the whole evening where everything snapped, she’d say it was right there. The moment when he said something he even surprised himself with. He looked at her and spoke: ‘Please, say something, Marth.’ Say something, and it sounded angry but also desperate, begging. She caught his gaze and shuddered - just like it had climbed up, the rollercoaster dropped, right in front of her. The anger evaporated from his tone and his words were barely above a whisper again, sounded like he looked, like he’d just been hit by a train. ‘You don’t love me, do you?’

Her jaw clenched. And to this day, she doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why she couldn’t just say the words – ‘Clive –’ she whispered, but whatever she could give him would never be enough, would it? ‘Clive, we agreed –’

And she guesses, that’s the problem with rules, isn’t it? They’re meant to be broken. If this interferes with work, she knows she’d said, last year. We’re done. If we fall to hard, we’re done. If we lie to each other, we’re –

Her breath caught in her throat, then, and she swallowed heavily when she saw the hurt look on his face, the way his smile seemed to tear it apart. And, she doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know why she kept quiet. Could have said anything, could have fixed whatever they were with her broken voice, full of tears, could have jumped into his arms and whispered sweet nothings in his ear - everything would have been okay.

She didn’t, though, just stood there, motionless, paralysed with fear and three words that she couldn’t bring herself to say. Martha doesn’t know why but it ended him, ended them. All she wants to do, now, is to get drunk, put herself into a coma and not have to feel this, whatever it is, the deep, dark, hole eating at her chest.

She can’t, though. She’s having his baby and it’s the last thing that remains of him.

Martha looks to her right at CW sitting next to her and pushes her glass aside, lets the other woman down it. And there it is, she decides. She’s pregnant, still. Pregnant women don’t drink.

.

At home, that night, she lies awake and cries. Hot tears that burn when they glide down her cheeks, all the way through her, it seems. She doesn’t like to think about what Clive said after she failed to answer but unfortunately, it’s all she can hear.

‘We’re done,’ he almost whispered. She shook her head, please. ‘No, Marth,’ he said, louder, calmer, holding her gaze. ‘This. You and I.’ A sigh. She closed her eyes and suddenly felt him close to her, his thumb against her skin. He wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘That’s it. We’re done.’

We’re done.

So, all night, that night, she works to push the sound of his voice out of her head. The more she thinks about it, the least she can bring herself to see what comes next, in her life, doesn’t want to think about what comes next, because what’s the point, anyway? She’s keeping a baby that’s going to remind her of that night every time she looks at it, and she also can’t even bring herself to get rid of it.

On top of all of this, she’s going to be a terrible mother, she thinks.

.

Eyes puffy and red, the next morning. The sun rises around four, she gets up around six. Can’t make the effort. Can’t put the Martha Costello Q.C façade on, can’t -

She tries. God knows, she tries. To a comical extent, frankly. She puts the suit on, the foundation, stops short of the lipstick. Her eyes are overflowing tears, like out of their own accord, like rain spilling from the saucer underneath a flowerpot. Martha Costello looks at herself in the mirror and for the first time in her life, including that time when her dad died, and that other time when she lost a baby, she thinks to herself: I can’t.

Phones Charlotte at 8:30. “I need someone else to take the Kabacinski hearing,” she just says. Her own voice sounds dead. Because yes, the irony, here, is that she was telling the truth. When Clive came in, last night, and accused her of lying, that one particular time, she wasn’t. Wasn’t working on Sean’s case because in the afternoon, something more pressing, more urgent, came up. Something she should have worked on last night, something that she has no idea how to effectively defend. She’d be doing a disservice to the client if – “Ask to push it back, say I have pneumonia or something –”

Charlotte laughs. The sound almost physically hurts, like Martha can’t bear to witness somebody else’s happiness, anymore. “Why?”

“Look, I’ve never asked before, please, Charlotte, can you -”

“Oh, of course, I can,” Charlotte continues to smile, but – “You’ll have to tell me why, though.”

So: it is 9:30 AM when the doorbell rings. It’s not him, Martha sees, through the peephole. Her heart almost leapt, there; there is an apologetic look on Charlotte’s face.

“Sorry,” the woman says. “It’s just me.” Martha’s gaze hovers down Charlotte’s frame, sees the boxes in her arms. “I would have brought wine but with your condition,” Charlotte adds, shrugs. Suddenly, Martha can’t remember telling her about the baby but maybe she did, maybe her recollections also don’t matter, today. “I thought our friend Ben and Jerry will have to do –”

.

They’re silent, sit on the couch. It’s a while later when Martha finishes the pint of ice cream Charlotte’s strategically placed in front of her – a spoon stands inside the empty carton. “I think I’ve just put on a stone,” Martha says, sees Charlotte shrug, nod.

“Possible.” The other woman sets her own carton down, looks to the side. “Are you going to throw up?”

Martha pouts. She feels slightly nauseous, but always feels nauseous, these days. “Don’t think so,” she says, shrugs.

They stay quiet for a bit, the minutes ticking in the background. Martha’s head hurts, it feels a little bit like a hangover, to tell the truth.

“He said we were done,” she quotes, finally, because in the end, what’s the point? She kept that secret, last night, didn’t want to tell CW about the fight, didn’t want to tell herself about how it ended. But that’s how it ended, isn’t it? He looked at her and settled the dispute there and then, and nothing else mattered. “I begged him not to go,” Martha adds, now, tone almost disbelieving, catches Charlotte’s gaze. “I, Martha Costello Q.C, I begged a man not to go. And I cried,” she breathes; it’s all a blur, in her head, now. A lonely, heartbroken blur. “And I said I was sorry – fucking pathetic when you think about it,” she shakes her head, shrugs. “He just left anyway.”

And the strange thing about her memory is: she remembers odd things like noises and feelings. After he spoke, she felt like her body was just standing there, unmoving, her mind miles away. A noise brought her back to reality: the rattle of his keys as he set them on the counter. She said nothing. Couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to be there and somehow, she almost wasn’t.

‘Marth, please, don’t cry,’ he whispered. She couldn’t believe it, couldn’t –

I’m pregnant, she thought to herself, her hand finding her stomach. You’re breaking up with a pregnant woman and how dare you ask me not to cry, and: ‘Fuck you,’ Martha did say, then. It didn’t even feel like anger, more like desperation, a need to throw insults at him and make him react, fight, maybe stay. The words echoed like gunshots in her head.  

He nodded, agreed, again. ‘Yeah, you did,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you?’

She doesn’t know how or when he left. She remembers looking up and suddenly he wasn’t there, anymore, the door had slammed shut on his way out. Martha sat on the table, her dark tracksuits contrasting with the white of the wood and thought that was what dying must feel like.

Now that she thinks about it, it’s probably unprofessional to have Charlotte on her sofa, today. They’re not friends, not really, but even then, what’s the point, anyway? Work, everything but Clive, nothing else matters, anymore. “You know what?” Martha asks Charlotte, later, thinks to herself as she speaks. “I’m thirty-nine years old,” she pauses, sits back against the cushions of her couch. “I’m thirty-nine years old and I’ve never felt like this before,” she points to herself, loosely. To the mess that she is, today. “Like nothing else really matters, like he yanked my heart out of my own body and fucking ran away with it.” A pause. Charlotte nods, smiles. “That fucking asshole,” she settles.

Before she speaks, Charlotte looks up at Martha to confirm the diagnosis. “Yup,” she says. “Heartbreak. Happens to the best of us, I swear.”

Right. And, fuck, Martha thinks, is that what it is, then? Because she was fucking pathetic, last night. ‘Clive, please, stay, I promise, I’ll –’

But then, what? She couldn’t honestly tell him she’d change, couldn’t tell him she loved him, couldn’t tell him she’d drop Sean’s case, so: what? She catches Charlotte’s gaze, now, sighs. “Seventeen years of us and I broke it. All on my own. Like a big girl.”

Charlotte huffs out a chuckle. “Seventeen years?” she repeats, smiles. “See, I generally believe we should all be entitled to breakup bank holidays. One day out of work for each year the relationship lasted. But then I clearly can’t keep you out of court for that long so I guess today will have to do,” Charlotte laughs and in that particular moment, so does Martha. The kind of if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry laugh. But a laugh nonetheless.  

“Maybe, I did love him, you know?” Martha whispers, later on. Charlotte throws her a glance, almost surprised. “Maybe, I should have told him that.”

Charlotte opens her mouth to counter, then, or perhaps to just say something, something that would make Martha feel better, something –

“I’ll be fine,” she promises Charlotte as much as herself. An almost painful, melancholic smile grazes Martha’s face. “Tomorrow will be another day,” she confirms. “I just need to wallow and feel like shit for a while.”

Charlotte laughs at that, of course, then, but nods. Martha sees the clerk get up and walk around the room towards her record player. “Okay, you know what we need then?” Charlotte asks and fishes out an album from Martha’s collection. Martha can’t really see what it is from where she sits, just a dark picture from afar. And yes, Martha muses, maybe music is the answer, maybe –

She recognises the guitar riff as soon as the sound comes on. Oh, okay, Martha smiles to herself, shakes her head at Charlotte in disbelief.

“Ah, go on,” Charlotte laughs. The singer’s voice fills the room; the clerk sings along to it. Pretty off-key, to tell the truth - not that it matters. “Best break-up album of all time, am I right?”

Martha bursts out laughing. Maybe, it is. Maybe –

There’s a fire, starting in my heart, reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out of the dark. Finally, I can see you crystal clear. Go ahead and sell me out, and I’ll lay your ship bare.

And by the time the music picks up, Charlotte’s body is moving to its rhythm in Martha living room; the young woman extends a hand in Martha’s direction, laughs. Martha sighs, rolls her eyes. “Come on…” Charlotte smiles, hints. “You know you want to… I’ve been told you’re quite the dancer …”

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless, I can’t help feeling –

And so, yes, by the time we could have had it all rings at the top of Adele’s lungs, both Charlotte and Martha are up dancing, shouting the lyrics, too.

The thing is, though, that album may be good but it also doesn’t end very well. Someone like you comes along. It always does. And the silence that follows is deafening.

“Fuck him,” Martha decides. Charlotte smiles from her end of the couch, nods.

“Good.”

.

In truth, Martha’s never liked silence, thinks that’s why she likes music. After Charlotte leaves, that night, she –

The apartment is empty. It’s late, the lights are on like they always are. Martha makes it to the kitchen, where all the papers she was working on last night remain untouched.

The tea she had made for herself has gone cold now, so she makes another one and works for a bit. Works until she feels the urge to grab her phone, walk into the living room as the dial rings. “Hello?”

Her mother sounds surprised when she picks up; it’s late, Martha guesses, unusual. “Hi, Mum.”

The voice at the other end is quick, warm; Martha closes her eyes and thinks of the roof, back home, the breeze in her hair. “How are you?” her mother asks. “Is everything okay?”

It’s been a while since they last talked, Martha realises. She didn’t want to tell her about the pregnancy, didn’t want to make the same mistake twice, but also didn’t want to lie to her. Fuck that, though, she thinks, now. Fuck caution. “Mum, I’m pregnant.”

There is silence; it’s frankly a bit too long to be appropriate. “Oh,” her mother says, which sounds like something between surprise, approval and disapproval all at once. “Congratulations, then, darling,” Martha hears, too, and after all, her mother was the one who put the idea of trying again into her brain, wasn’t she, once upon a time? “How far along are you?”

“About ten weeks.”

Another silence and: “Oh,” again. “That’s wonderful, honey; you know I’ve always wanted grandchildren.”

Martha doesn’t say anything but hears shuffling on her mother’s side for a bit, the sound becoming muffled, more distant, until she hears her say: ‘Yeah, Roy, I’m coming.’

She picks up the phone again. “Look, Martha, I’ve got to head off, okay?” her mother adds in a breath. “But thanks for telling me, it’s all very exciting!” she says, clearly faking said excitement, but well, it’s something, at least. Martha blinks. “Good night.”

“Yeah, Mum, thanks,” she sighs, shakes her head. It’s not that her mother sounds like she doesn’t care, per se, just like she doesn’t have the time. “Good night.”

The line disconnects, the tone loud and empty in her ear. Her phone drops. She drops. On her chair, pondering over tea.

There is work to be done, Martha thinks, promises herself almost. And tomorrow will be another day.

Chapter Text

xii.

They say girls shouldn’t be tough and mums should raise their kids at home, but baby I know that that isn’t true, ‘cause your mum’s the toughest person I know. I want to raise you to be like her and watch you show the world how to do it on your own.

Growing Up – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ed Sheeran

Martha Costello was fourteen years old when she started having serious thoughts about her ability to procreate beyond the general expectation that she would marry and have kids one day, own a house and a dog or a cat, depending on what her husband wanted. She entertained these recurring thoughts every four weeks or so, waiting for her period to come with the anxiety and anticipation of a soldier pining for battle. She had friends, she remembers, who wanted families, and babies, and used to say: ‘If it happened to me, I’d keep it,’ with no bloody idea of what having a child would entail. Her mother had had her at twenty and Martha already looked at her life and thought: not me.

So, she said – to herself, mostly, – ‘If the time isn’t right, I’ll terminate.’

It came over and over again in her head like a motto, every time her period was a bit late or her breasts a bit sore, until she was thirty-seven years old, throwing up in the toilets of a police station and all of that smart talk flew out the window. And then, again, now.

Clive had perfect timing to put an end to them, didn’t he?

.

The next morning, day two after the break-up (there is also a before and an after this point in her life, she thinks), Martha gets up and puts on an extra layer of make-up on her face, walks into Chambers and pretends that she doesn’t still feel like the life has been sucked out of her. She’s never been really good at dealing with things, prefers to cover them up, forget they ever existed. If Martha doesn’t think about it, doesn’t feel about it, there may be a chance that she might not actually break. After all, she’s a grown woman, she’s been dumped before; it’ll be fine. Jo and her cheap psychology courses would probably say to confront things head-on and wallow in self-pity for a little while longer but that’s not how Martha Costello does things. So, she sits at her desk and laughs at one of Nick’s jokes, watches Billy smiling back at her from his picture frame and adopts the same tactics she did when he passed away: pushing it to the back of her brain in an attempt to numb how much it hurts.

Last night, she must have slept for about an hour or so, between five and six, when her mind finally stopped swirling thoughts around her head like tasteless soup in a pan. Her alarm went off and she felt the anger, and the fight creep back in, thought: you’re better than him.

Her bedroom was silent, then, all she could hear were the birds chirping away at the summer outside. A while back, she used to be able to hear the low hum of the refrigerator from here, if she paid attention. She remembered waking up two days ago (before, she muses): the alarm had just gone off and she’d hit snooze forcefully with her palm, turned away from the noise. Clive had laughed, in the background, snuck back in bed with his hair still wet from the shower, kissed her temple and joked: ‘Good morning, sunshine!’

She had rolled her eyes behind her closed lids, felt his hand travel down under the sheets between them, his palm stopping on a space over her bellybutton. ‘Good morning, you too,’ she heard him say, this time, and tried very hard not to smile.

Unlike Clive, she’d never talked to the baby before, was so convinced that she was going to lose it, didn’t want to get attached. This morning, though, when she woke up alone in her bed and saw the sun already creeping past the blinds, she set her hand on her stomach and whispered: “Stay. Please.”

We’re better than him, she thought.

.

Martha was seventeen the first time she tried - the first of many, many times - to dump Sean. She made one main mistake, back then: seeing him again. Since it did just so happen that she was in love with him, he apologised, and they compromised, and she took him back. Time and time again.

Eventually, she learnt from her mistakes.

Clive – it seems – did learn from them as well. (Or maybe they were his own, who knows?)

Over the next week or so, he avoids her like the plague. And sure, of course, you could blame serendipity or happenstance on that one but frankly, Martha finds it hard to believe. They usually always seem to run into each other: in court, at the pub – but not anymore. She’s always looking over her shoulder - out of habit more than anything else - and everywhere she goes, he’s just never there.

She reaches the obvious conclusion that he doesn’t want to see her.

Understandable, Martha guesses. A few years ago, after Jérôme broke up with her, she didn’t want to see him, either. ‘You two need to talk,’ Clive said, once (many times, actually), just looking at her over his kitchen table. Her phone kept vibrating with random calls every so often – she kept refusing them.

She’d packed some of her stuff into a suitcase, the day she walked out, but of course, not all of it. Had just snapped the essentials: her toothbrush, most of her work clothes, a couple of pictures of them that she intended to burn. One minute her name was on their shared lease and the other, she’d evaporated from his life.

Martha didn’t want to see Jérôme or even talk to him on the phone, so eventually she had to start re-purchasing stuff. Books that she’d loved and had left at his place, plates and tea towels once she moved out of Clive’s flat and into her new one. Clive thought it was all a bit ridiculous.

‘This break-up cost me a fortune,’ she joked, once, and he rolled her eyes as if to say: You brought this upon yourself, didn’t you? She guessed that she did.

In court, now, Martha rushes to the toilets to vomit, brushes her teeth when she’s done and looks at herself in the mirror. Frankly, she doesn’t know where she was going with this anecdote, doesn’t know what conclusion to draw from all of this. It’s the way her mind works, she guesses: she recalls events from the past and tries to analyse them to inform how she should behave today but this time, it doesn’t work. This time, everything just feels like a void. She doesn’t know how to react to Clive breaking up with her because she doesn’t remember ever being broken-up with and him not being there, cracking jokes, so what is she meant to do when her support system has left her, too?

.

The thing is, though: she does see him, eventually. Granted, they’re not in the same place when she does, but she does see him, nonetheless.

It’s the pictures online. She fucking hates it. Never usually checks Facebook - only has an account with a fake name and a blank photo to stalk people when she needs to; typically, for work purposes. She’s an excellent investigator, in fairness (as the Tony Paddick prosecution showed), but sometimes, she wishes she wasn’t. Especially when her target is Clive.

Now, she doesn’t need to stalk him, her invisible friend. It’s not like work, looking for clues about a case; Martha doesn’t strictly need to spend hours online, glaring at Clive’s different social media accounts, but she still does. He never posts pictures on his own account, of course - Matthew Books (if you know his middle name, not that hard to find, is it?) - but he’s on other people’s pictures. In clubs. In the background of shots, cosy, little booths and his arm thrown over the shoulders of girls half his age.

‘What are you looking at?’ Charlotte asks, creeping behind Martha’s laptop before she has time to shut the screen. ‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ the clerk adds. Martha sighs.

‘What am I meant to do then?’ she asks, genuinely, because again, she has no experience in this – thus no clue how to even react. ‘I’m fucking pregnant, retching over the toilet every goddamn day and he’s –’

‘Trying to be a cunt,’ Charlotte settles, stepping back towards the door. ‘Don’t fall for it.’

.

She tries not to. Eventually almost succeeds, almost forgets to think about him every minute of every bloody day, until she does – finally – run into him, that is.

That day, she’s standing alone in the robing room, making sure the safety pin she now uses instead of zipping her skirts all the way up is still in place – Martha’s not showing, yet, but she’s bloated and wishes early maternity suits were a thing, already – when he walks in. She’s positioned in a way that has her facing the door, in that particular moment, so she’s the first thing that he sees, walking in. Clive freezes, instantly, his hand still on the handle.

She looks up, crosses his gaze, looks away. Has to admit it’s a small victory to establish that he looks every bit as shit as she feels.

“Sorry,” he says, backing away towards the door.

She rolls her eyes, slipping her gown on. “It’s fine. I’m almost done, anyway,” she says, looking away.

He’s got no choice but to stay, now, and the silence is strained between them for another couple of minutes as he stands behind her shoving belongings into his locker. Martha wishes she had, indeed, been almost done or that there were other people in the room for either of them to talk to. Frankly, she feels like she’s stuck in a lift with Prince Charles.

An audible sigh comes out of her mouth; she turns around to look at his back as he stands, facing the other side, the little benches between both rows of lockers an awkward fence between them. “I’m keeping it,” she hears herself burst the words out, looking at him.

Clive freezes, again, a hand closing up his gown. He doesn’t turn around, keeps his eyes trained down on his feet. “Keeping what?”

Martha doesn’t answer right away, waits until he finally does turn around to hold her gaze for an instant before she looks away. Turns back towards her locker, fishing in for her wig. He’s fucking with her mind, so she’ll fuck with his as well, she decides. “The baby,” she says, pausing. Wig in hand, Martha turns around again, sets it on top of the binders she’d laid down on the bench before reaching to lift them up in her arms. Clive stays there, a hand on his collar, unmoving. “I thought maybe I wouldn’t,” she admits, shrugs. “But now, I will.” She breathes, holding the files in her arms; it feels good to be holding onto something, at least. “So, if you want to play a role in its life, that’s fine, I can’t deprive you of that,” she adds, pausing. “But I won’t expect anything from you.”

“Jesus, Martha, of course, I want to be part of its life. I –”

“Then, stop,” she says. Her voice is cold, no-nonsense, that of someone who’s had enough. She catches his gaze, studies his pupils for a moment and glares. “The partying, the girls –”

Clive opens his mouth to counter, tell her it’s none of her business, and in the grand scheme of things, Martha guesses, he’s right to do so. She’s got no right to tell him what to do about that, about where to go and who to fuck, but –

“The snow,” she adds, interrupts before he can add anything else. At that, his jaw clenches. She’s got him, she knows, when he looks away. “I can tell when you’re high, you know?” she points out, because frankly, under the harsh lights of the robbing room, it’s the only thing she can see. He fidgets, sniffles; it’s pathetic, honestly. “You want to hurt me,” Martha adds. “That’s fine. But you need to put an end to this right now, or else I swear to God you’ll never see this baby.”

Her voice almost breaks, towards the end of her sentence, and he doesn’t deny wanting to hurt her but there’s that look on his face when she glances up at him, the look of a boy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Marth -”

“Don’t,” she counters, quickly, because frankly whatever he still has to say, she’s not sure she’s strong enough to hear it. It almost surprised her, the authority that remained in her voice when she spoke. “I’ll, uh,” she starts, stops, walks the couple of steps to the door. “I’ll keep you informed, then.”

And, just like that, from that moment on, the pictures online stop. So does his stupid cocaine habit.

.

Over the next month or so, Martha works. She’s Martha Costello, the workhorse, the cross between Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and a small Rottweiler. Her days are spent Chambers and her nights sat at her kitchen table, on the somewhat rare occasions when she finds the courage to make it home. She thinks that if she knew Sean’s case back to back before, it’s nothing compared to now. She can quote any page from the transcripts and picture all the shots taken of the victim’s body from memory, knows everything there is to know down to the exact shape of the blood stain on Sean’s jacket. Sometimes, there is another case, a late return or slow burner that was scheduled beforehand and she takes a break, reviews the binder, goes to court, makes her argument, wins it, and then it’s back to her room she goes. In different circumstances, she might have seen a bit of truth in the argument implying that she’s going completely mad in the head but right now, on the opposite, it keeps her from losing her mind. Keeps her focused.

Nick knocks on the door to her room, one night, with a plate in hand. She smiles, waves him in and throws him a questioning look when he sets it on her desk. It’s cake, three slices left, part of what probably used to be a perfect circle.

“What is it?” she asks, looking up from her laptop. She means it like: ‘What’s up?’ but Nick takes the question literally.

“Chocolate, I think,” he says, taking a slice between his fingers. He sets it down on a napkin, sits back in his chair, holding the food in his palm. “Was for Latifa’s birthday earlier. I think,” he explains. She sees him bite in and hum in appreciation, wiping his fingers on the napkin. “Not bad. You should have some,” he adds, nodding at the plate.

Martha looks down at the cake. It looks good, frankly, and she’s hungry, but if it’s just to throw it all up again in half an hour, she’d rather not. “I’m good, thanks,” she says, sadly, looking back down at her paperwork.

Nick smiles, pushes the plate towards her. “I really think you should eat,” he pauses as she looks up, raises an eyebrow. “Considering.”

“Considering what?”

He smiles and holds her gaze, sets his half-eaten piece of cake between them before sitting back in his chair, the low glow of Martha’s desk lamp casting a shadow over the left side of his face. “The fact that I haven’t seen you drink or smoke in over a month,” he says, pausing. “And the fact that I heard you vomiting in the toilet, yesterday. And the day before that.”

“Stomach bug,” she counters, automatically, barely looking up.

Nick huffs out a laugh, catches her gaze. “Yeah,” he says. “Is that what they call it, these days?”

Martha rolls her eyes and sits back in her chair, finally, crosses her arms over her chest. At least he’s not commenting on the size of her tits like CW did, she muses. “Okay,” she nods, glancing down at her desk. “Well, clearly you also know I can’t seem to keep anything down, so –”

Nick laughs and raises an eyebrow. “Even chocolate?”

She doesn’t know if it’s the look on his face or the genuine concern that seems to filter behind his words but Martha catches herself smiling and okay, she thinks: it may be time for a break. She’s been working non-stop since she came back from court at 5 p.m. and the sky is dark, now, so she shuts the screen of her laptop and sits back again, extending her legs under her desk, closes her eyes, and sighs. “It’s the smells, really,” she admits, looking up at him. “Stuff I even used to like,” she shrugs. “Mint. Coconut. Onions. Anything, really,” she adds, rolling her eyes.

Nick smiles, leaning in again to grab another piece of cake. “Fine,” he chuckles, shoving a bite into his mouth. “I’ll eat it all, then.”

They end up laughing about everything and nothing for a bit, she rediscovers muscles in her face she’d forgotten since Clive left. So, Nick knows, she notes. From the height of his twenty-four years on this planet, he probably thinks she’s just one of those women who always seem to be pregnant. Martha rolls her eyes at the thought, looking down at the paperwork she still has to get through. She meant to come to him about this tomorrow, really, but since he’s there, she might as well tell him tonight. “I think you’re right,” she admits, finally, leaning back in her chair, her hands behind her head.

“’bout wha-?” Nick asks, still chewing on cake.

“We need to argue evidence,” she breathes, pushing a paper aside. “I don’t care what Sean says. He’s lied too much at this stage to make anyone believe he’s innocent. We need to argue the law.”

Nick looks up at her words, catches her gaze. He’d brought the idea up a few days ago, pointing out the inconsistencies in the case. ‘Why call Mickey Joy?’ he’d asked, followed by: ‘And why disregard his statement, then?’ And: ‘An anonymous informant found the jacket? Please? Who found this, really, do we know?’

Martha didn’t answer that one, obviously, but after turning it around in her head for the last two days; she thinks Nick kind of has a point. The gun, the jacket, half the evidence fell on their lap in the middle of trial, with little to no time for anyone to truly examine it. Fitzpatrick relied on Brannigan’s testimony - no questions asked - and if the guy was paid by the Monk family to throw Sean under the bus, the coppers had to know about it. Mickey Joy was wrong about this. It’s not the big, bad conspiracy that counts, it’s the little details that allowed it to stand. It’s an appeal; the judges will have reviewed the evidence, the turn the first trial took already. They’ll know the story of the Monk family killing two birds with one stone and they’ll either believe it or not, but she won’t change their opinions about it. She hates it but she needs to work like the coppers do, now. She’s got the narrative, needs to show where the evidence sticks, and where it doesn’t. Nick’s right: if the evidence falls on irregularities, there’s reasonable doubt. And if there’s reasonable doubt, Sean walks.

“You think I’m right?” Nick says, smiling, leaning over the desk.

Martha laughs, nods. “For the record, I voted to keep you in at Shoe Lane, you know?”

“Well,” he sighs, wiping his fingers on the napkin. “I voted you in here, so we’re even, I guess,” he adds, pausing for a bit, seems to think about it. “Seriously, though? You agree?”

“I,” she starts and lets the syllable rest in her mouth for a bit. Thinks. “I think Sean’s an idiot,” she smiles, shaking her head. “But I also think he’s innocent. The thing is: I’ve tried that argument before, that and police corruption and we both know how that ended,” she breathes. “It’s more than that, though. It’s this trial being run like a circus from start to finish. It’s that copper lying on the stand, it’s Mickey Joy going back and forth on his testimony, it’s CW being drunk, it’s Cl-” she almost slips, shakes her head, sighs. “It’s that jacket being found last minute by God knows who, I mean, it’s everything, it’s just all bollocks really. Even I shouldn’t be in there, I’m conflicted out.”

Nick laughs, sits back, crosses his arms. “Glad to hear you say it.”

Martha shakes her head, huffs a bit of a laugh. “What I mean is,” she starts. “We need to bring that down bit by bit. If we just argue innocence, all we have is the blood on the wrong sleeve of that jacket. And yes, that’s relevant, and we’ll bring it up but believe me, they’ll find some other way to pin this on him,” she sighs. “We need to burn the whole house down.”

Nick stays silent for a bit, purses his lips, lets her words sink in. “Sean isn’t going to be happy,” he says. “He was, er, pretty adamant on innocence.”

“Well, he’ll have to get used to it,” she sighs. “‘Cause right now, I’m all he’s got,” she pauses. “If he wants to fire me, he just has to say the word,” she shrugs, eyeing the clutter around her room. There are dozens of files on her desk, a wobbly bookcase by Vanessa’s and curtains that barely filter the streetlights from the outside. Martha leans forward, her hand hovering over her desk for a bit and finally grabs a piece of cake. Fuck it, she thinks. Nick smiles. “So,” she says, looking up at him. Hm, she thinks, that cake really is nice. “Are you in?”

“To burn the house down?”

Martha chews a bit, swallows. “Yeah.”

Nick smiles, nods. “Always.”

.

It’s kind of hard to believe, as a coincidence, but she’s exactly fourteen weeks pregnant when the trial starts. The good news is that the nausea has finally rescinded – which will undoubtedly prove useful during the hearings - but other problems have made their apparition in the meantime. On the Sunday morning before the appeal, she looks at her clothes on their rack trying to find something to wear to go grab some food at the corner shop and decides that this is it: she can’t go on like this. She’d promised herself to wait until next week at least - that psychological barrier still high in her head - but then her credibility’s at stake. Even hidden under her robes, she can’t show up with a blouse she can’t close and a skirt that’s not even zipped up halfway through. She’s showing a lot more than last time, really, which the internet seems to confirm is normal but still, the pregnancy is becoming harder and harder to hide.

So, when 11 a.m. rolls around and the shops finally open, she goes shopping. There’s nothing more she can do on the case anyway, and frankly, if she calls Nick one more time to run things past him, she genuinely thinks he might stop answering. It’s hot, gross and rainy outside but still quiet in the shops when she gets there, so she spends a lot of time just looking at everything, from tracksuits to work clothes, and chatting with the salespeople in different places, trying to listen to them when they promise that no, that particular item does not make her look fat.

As a general rule, she’s always hated fashion shopping – her usual work uniform exists for a reason - but faced with the obvious fact that the pregnancy pencil skirts tend to be very revealing of her bump - which she’s not quite sure she wants to own that much, yet - she also ends up picking a few looser dresses, which make it easier to, er, hide things for a little while longer. Even though she’s past the twelve weeks, now, considering past experience, she still hasn’t found the courage to be open about it, really.

After hours spent going from shop to shop, her back and feet start to truly kill her, so she decides to stop at the pub to sit down and eat before making her way back home. The Crown is this kind of strange place where the busiest days are during the week, with the whole of Middle Temple pouring in every day after six, the weekends being oddly quiet and peaceful. Martha settles down at a table and can’t actually see anyone she knows, just a couple of tourists sitting by the door and a few other patrons at the back, reading newspapers or doing crossword puzzles. Pat walks up to her table; she’s placed all of her shopping bags on the booth; he throws her an amused smile. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he says, handing her the menu. “What can I get you?”

She doesn’t move to catch the menu from his hand, just glances up at him. “Full English?”

Pat laughs, checks his watch. “It’s 2:30 in the afternoon.”

Yes, she thinks, well. She feels like eggs. And beans, and toast. And now that she can finally eat without puking everything back out the next minute, she might as well indulge a bit. She holds Pat’s gaze, daring him to say no.

He laughs, shakes his head. “Ice cream and pickles on top, too?” he jokes and she rolls her eyes, glares up at him. “Come on,” he says, smiles, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just taking the piss.” He taps the table with the menu in his other hand, nodding. “To drink? Sprite? Water?”

“Water’s fine,” she nods.

She sees him turn around, shout over in the direction of the kitchen. “A full English breakfast and a pint of water coming right at yeh!”

.

The food is good, so is the company. Pat lets the young barman they recently hired, Tom, do the service and sits at her table, chats to Martha while she eats. He tells her about his kids, his ex-wife, his mum and brothers back in Armagh. “They don’t like me living out here,” he jokes, as Martha chews on a piece of toast. “Think I’m a traitor to the cause.”

She laughs at his jokes, but as the minutes pass and Pat’s small talk becomes the only thing available to occupy her mind, Martha starts thinking about Clive again. It’s easy to forget when she’s working, pulling all-nighters every other day, but every time she stops, or every time she stands in her underwear looking at her reflection in the mirror with her hand resting against her midriff, he creeps back into her mind. At first, all she could think about was what he said, turning it around in her head, not knowing what hurt more: the break-up itself, or the knowledge that it was her own betrayal that fucked everything up for them. Some days, Martha would wake up thinking Clive was right, thinking she was awful, heartless, careless, and that she was going to lose the baby again due to her own arrogance. Some other days, though, she’d blame him, call him names in her head, shout at him all the insults and recriminations she wishes she could have said to his face.

Now, it’s harder. Every time she sees him, runs into him in court or in the street, she remembers how they were, too, before. The I-love-you-s he used to whisper in her hair, the quiet mornings they’d have, visits to his sister’s and silly bickerings over her unwashed mugs left in the sink. It’s a bit weak, she knows, but she misses him, the smell of his skin and the sound of his voice, the feeling of his hand over hers.

It certainly doesn’t help that her hormones are through the roof, at the moment.

“You’re in a competition, aren’t you?” she hears Pat ask, blinks herself out of her thoughts.

She frowns toying with her fork, pushing the last few beans around the plate. “What?”

“You and ‘im,” Pat breathes, giving her a slight nod. Martha swallows, quick, shifts awkwardly in her seat. “Who’s more miserable?” he asks, catching her glance. “Fifteen minutes ago, I would have said him, but then I go away to put the tables out and next thing I know, you’re sitting here brooding and staring into space like a lost fucking sheep.”

Martha sighs, looks up, rolls her eyes. She’s not here to talk about Clive. She’s here because it’s hot and humid outside, because she was hungry and because her feet were killing her. Her eyes shut for a second before Pat speaks again.

“He comes here too, you know?” the barman says, trying to catch her gaze. “Every fucking night.”

And a heavy sigh escapes Martha’s mouth; she clenches her jaw. “I asked him to stop -” she starts, trails off. Told him to stop the drinking, the drugs, thought he had, thought –

“Oh, he’s definitely stopped the partying and fucking around,” Pat clarifies; Martha almost feels herself glance up. “Nah, he just sits on that stool down there,” he points, in the direction of the bar. “And drinks. Never seen him like that before, even had to throw him out a couple times ‘cause he didn’t want to go home,” Pat breathes. “Lost fucking sheep, just like you. Even that blonde Barbie of his doesn’t seem interested anymore, haven’t seen her in ages.”

Martha has to admit that does make her look up; she curses herself for it. Pathetic. “Harriet?”

Pat huffs out a laugh. “See?” he nods, smiling. “You care.”

She shrugs, looks out the window to her left. It’s funny, it’s the exact opposite of what Clive said, isn’t it? Claiming she doesn’t care, doesn’t love him.

“For what it’s worth, he said he was an idiot,” Pat adds, after a while, and Martha wonders if Clive didn’t ask him to plead his cause. Well, at least he knows he’s an idiot, she guesses. Doesn’t mean she’ll ever be able to forget the way he shouted at her that evening. “One night, he said: ‘Pat, I’m an idiot,’” he quotes, shrugs. “Which, in my experience with men in pubs, is almost always the case, but you know -”

She smiles, shortly, sadly, feels Pat’s stare on her face, his fingers tapping against the table in a rhythm she doesn’t recognise. “I miss Billy,” she hears herself say before she hears herself think. She doesn’t know where it comes from, exactly, or why it pops into her mind uninvited, but she really, really does miss Billy.

“Yeah, me too,” Pat breathes from the other side of the table, chuckles lightly. “So does my accountant,” he jokes and she smiles, shaking her head at him. “Your man can drink all he wants, he doesn’t even come close to Billy’s tab.”

A light laugh escapes Martha’s mouth, like a distant sound or an echo. She wonders what Billy would have said, now, looking at them. She hasn’t visited him since telling him about the baby, doesn’t know if she lacks the strength, or just doesn’t think she wants to spend even more time than she already does listening to the sound of her own thoughts. Billy would have put Clive and she in a room and forced them to make peace like all he’d done was to pull her hair on the playground.

“Do you love him?” Pat asks, catching her glance. “Clive, do you love him?” he specifies and she remembers the way Jo asked, in a pub, too, what feels like a million years ago. The answer’s the same, she thinks, will always be the same.

She speaks in a breath – it’s a lawyer thing: never answering the question asked. “I need to forget about him.”

Pat laughs, then, pushing himself up from the booth, both his hands on the table. Martha looks up at him, crosses his gaze. “Well, that’ll be a bit hard with that bun you’ve got in the oven, won’t it?”

.

It’s 7 a.m. the next morning and she’s dressed for court, light bright in her bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror as she applies her lipstick and thinks: good.

Not great, but good. Good enough. She’s had coffee, six hours of sleep and her new clothes look professional, fall over her stomach in a way that makes it less obvious and safer, protected, somehow. CW will open; she will close, one of the immutable privileges of the rule of law. She’s got five days to prove a truth and right a wrong, which feels a lot more like five days to disprove a lie and make a wrong look a bit less believable but that, she can do.

She meets Nick outside court, thinks he looks nervous and feels – oddly – calm. Sean isn’t, though. She sees him through the glass of his box when she walks in, the way he jitters and bites his fingers, looking from the empty judicial bench in front of him to Nick, to herself, to the accusation. Jumpy as hell, she recalls Clive once said. CW isn’t there, yet - probably drinking one last shot before the run through. Setting her bag at her feet, Martha sits down on the wood of the bench, closes her eyes, breathes.

She hears Nick ruffling papers behind her. She hears the usher sitting down. If she really concentrates, she can even listen to the tick-tack of the clock on the wall. CW walks in with someone behind her – pupil? Junior? Martha wonders – their footsteps getting closer, both wearing heels – probably a girl. She sits down, speaks. It’s the calm before the storm, Martha thinks.

“Ready for round two?”

Martha doesn’t move quite yet, just pictures the room in her head, inhales –

“All rise.”

Her eyes snap open, hands on the wood, she pushes herself up, sees three figures wearing gowns walk in front of her.

Okay, the voice in her head says. Here it goes.

.

When she was a child her teachers used to tell her parents about how focused she was. She would sit in silence for hours for the perfect drawing to come out, the perfect sentence, perfect posture. It was as if she could simply shut down, when she wanted to, have her brain aimed at one particular thing, one particular problem she needed to solve. She didn’t need food or water, didn’t need breaks, could sit on a chair for seven hours straight until the field of flowers on her paper was shaped in just the right way, with exactly the right colours framed.

What she does during those big trials is a bit of the same thing. It’s her and the court, and blurry shapes all around. She shuts down. Doesn’t look at people, doesn’t see them, doesn’t hear any noise that’s not strictly essential to her argument. She doesn’t do it all the time, but sometimes, when it’s necessary.

The sun, that week, only exists on her way to court and back; Martha lives in the office with Nick, runs her cross-examinations over and over with the precision of a classical musician playing to the sound of a metronome, and tries not to break. She counts the points she scores versus the hits she takes, CW’s voice constantly hovering close to the penalty line. Sean is there, in the box behind her, she knows, but she never looks – never lets herself look – for fear that the glass might break. She’s more prepared than last time, has got the luxury to be because Charlotte freed her calendar this week and the week before, told her she needed to win this.

There’s a part of Martha that wants to fight that, wants to point out that the only reason her clerk cares is that it would look good for Chambers, but she’s shutting down, now, so she needs to choose her battles.

She chooses Sean.

.

Every time she goes to the loo, she expects to find blood on her underwear. Somehow, though, she doesn’t. Somehow, by some sort of incredible twist of fate, the little one seems to hang in there, as far as she knows. She’s read online that sometimes, their hearts could stop beating without you knowing about it. She’s read a lot of horror stories, at night, when she can’t sleep, tries not to think too much about it. She doesn’t want Clive to be right on that one, telling her that losing their first one over a violent client meant that she’d also lose the other. If what he said was true, it may mean that he’s right about everything else.

The first few days go by in the blink of an eye. They have legal arguments about anything from the length of the trial to Mickey Joy’s testimony (it’s easy, she argues, to just simply disregard the words of a dead man) some that she wins, some that she loses. It’s a lot of clever words, a lot of “my learned friend”s from CW, they frankly hurt Martha’s ears.

They have one of Sean’s mates on the stand one afternoon. He’s called by the prosecution. CW claims Sean had subcontracted some cleaning business to him but Martha has an odd, fishy feeling about it. The guy wasn’t there at the first trial, looks familiar, somehow, but she can’t quite place it. He’s nervous, glances at Sean, glances at her a lot, like he’s not quite decided on what he wants to say, yet.

“Nick Westlake, Martin Land, Steve Keane and Robin Page,” CW quotes, finally, after a good ten minutes of excruciatingly pointless questions about the details of the man’s business with Sean. Martha freezes, catches the pen that had been swirling between her fingers in her palm, holds her breath. That’s where she knows him from, she realises: he was in school with them, a few years older, dropped out a few months before Sean and she got together. Martha doesn’t think he recognises her, really, but he looks like he definitely recognises the names, his glance quickly flickering towards Sean. Either CW is fishing - which is possible, Martha guesses, because everyone’s been trying to figure out who these people were for months, after all - or she was told.

If she was, there’s only one person who could have told her.

Fuck Clive, Martha thinks.

Sean’s stare is digging holes into the back of her head as CW speaks, asks: “Do those names sound familiar to you?”

Frankly, Martha wonders if she would lie for him, were she the one required to speak, out there. An obvious thought hits the back of her head: of course, she would.

And: “No,” she hears Sean’s mate say, too. Martha breathes.

“Are you sure?” CW counters, her forearm resting against the wood of the lectern in front of her. “We’ve looked at the records, it seems that you attended the same school. Same school as Mr McBride, shall I add?”

All things considered, Martha believes she, herself, argues her way out of this one with calm, collection and the utmost brilliance. She throws the ball back at CW first, accusing her of testifying for the witness, points out how loose the connection is, even more so considering the number of people who were at that school and the limited time her client actually spent within its walls. From the look on the judges’ faces and the way they request CW to move on, it sounds a lot more believable than it should.

CW herself smiles, after she loses the argument, something tight and very Lady-Macbeth-ian, Martha thinks, for the lack of a better word. The other barrister steals a quick glance at Martha before she notes, her voice lower than the last time she spoke: “Yes, Mr Donovan, plenty of people at that school, indeed.”

.

A few hours later, they break for the day and Martha is packing up her things when CW smiles at her, toying with the cap of her empty bottle. “You knew, didn’t you? Your classmates?” CW asks, looking up at her. “Maybe it’s true. Maybe that guy Donovan doesn’t know them,” she pauses. “But you do. That’s why you walked out, last time.” There is a pause, in her speech, she catches Martha’s gaze. “You should be disbarred.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

“Thought that was weird, you know? You walking out like that,” she adds as Martha keeps packing, shoving her wig inside her handbag and grabbing the files on her desk in her arms. There is a hint of: ‘come and get me,’ in what she attempts to project, there, a look of: ‘prove it,’ like a challenge, but when Martha reaches for her purse inside her bag, she feels her hands shake. “I had the pupil look into it,” CW adds, gaze still studying Martha. “Our beloved Head of Chambers wasn’t happy about that. Insisted there was nothing to find,” she pauses. Martha’s eyes are trained down, heart racing against her ribcage. “Which, of course, considering the circumstances, I thought was even more interesting.”

Against her better judgment, Martha looks up, catches CW’s gaze. It wasn’t Clive, she thinks. At least, not voluntarily. It was just CW fucking with her head all afternoon until the woman finally decided that she’d had enough, after Martha spent the entire hearing thinking about it, thoughts going round and round in her head, and fucking Caroline Warwick probably knew this the whole time. She lost points, in this mess, nothing too big but it felt like she was gripping at straws all afternoon, all because CW got under her fucking skin. Clive tried to cover for her, for better or for worse, he tried to –

Martha takes her phone in her hand, gathers all of her things under her arm and: “Good night, Caroline,” she hears herself say, making a very conscious effort not to just rush out of the room.

The door is heavy as it closes behind her and she leans against the wall outside court. One, two, one, two, she counts, breathe.

.

The next day, things get back on track. CW brings up the jacket, the gun; Martha argues the chain of evidence and drives her point home with at least two of the judges, from what she can tell. She also gets her rematch against the medical examiner, gets her to admit that: “No, Mr McBride isn’t left-handed.”

She pushes, catches the other woman’s glance. “You didn’t know this, did you?”

“I didn’t, but –”

“But you didn’t have time to examine the jacket properly, did you, Miss Buchan? Because it was found in the middle of trial and you were rushed to issue your conclusions, and you know what? I didn’t notice it either,” Martha shrugs, theatrical. Her gaze flicks over to the bench, then back to her witness. “The police, they had their man, their narrative, and that was enough. They didn’t grant me the right I had to counter them, didn’t give you the power to do your job properly, and now they’re letting you stand here, a year later, trapped in a position where your findings are coming out as incorrect by their fault,” Martha adds, pauses, her glance resting on the medical examiner’s eyes. “Now, Miss Buchan, how does that make you feel?”

The other woman opens her mouth, closes it, shakes her head. There’s desperation in her look, and apologies; it almost makes Martha sad.

“I’ll tell you how it makes me feel,” she hammers, letting her point make itself. “Cheated. On behalf of my client, and of the justice system you and I both are so dedicated to serving.”

The witness clenches her jaw but doesn’t say anything, bites her lip and closes her eyes for a second.

It feels like they’re alone in the room, when Martha quotes: “One big performance, isn’t it?”

And this time, she stands a few seconds more, gives the woman the opportunity to answer, dutifully, but the words never come. Martha sits down, noting, out loud: “No response.”

.

It’s funny, how quickly the sand can shift under one’s feet. She was the runner-up, then toe to toe with the leading filly but after that, when the prosecution runs Sean’s background and she argues evidence, relevance, it feels like a whole different race, altogether. The audience’s focus isn’t on CW, anymore, but on Martha. It feels like she owns the tracks now.

‘I just wish things were clearer, sometimes,’ she told Alan, once. She was younger; he was wiser. ‘That everyone didn’t think this is all a game.’

He shook his head, smiled. ‘But it is, though,’ he declared. ‘A serious one, a betting one, but a game nonetheless,’ he laughed.

Well, Martha thinks, if this is a betting game, at least here, she knows the tells. When the next day, they have Brannigan on the stand, she gets to go through his accounts, his lifestyle, with the full attention of the room set on her. “You’re being paid by the Monk family, aren’t you, Mr Brannigan?” she asks, her voice loud and clear, echoing in the room. “You were paid to throw your mate, Sean, here, under the bus.”

“No,” Loyd says and she sighs, shaking her head.

“So, for the umpteenth time, sir, where does the money come from?”

“I don’t know, okay?” he finally shouts, frantic and jumpy, and Martha utters a smile, looks up at the bench and sits back down.

“No further questions.”

.

Once night, she receives her first text from Clive in a very long while. She’s putting some ready-made meal in the oven, wipes her hand on a tea towel before grabbing her phone. It’s funny, really, but when she looks at her screen, the last message before this one is from weeks ago and says I’ll see you tonight, then. The new one is just a link, a Guardian article from a reporter covering the trial. Gangland Appeal Takes Highlights Police Corruption in Manchester, the headline reads.

In an unexpected turn of events, the appeal of Mr. Sean McBride, 39 year-old Manchester nightclub owner, in the murder of gang-member Jimmy Monk in March 2014, is now revealing a series of deep holes in a police investigation that may have led to the conviction of an innocent man -

Well, she thinks: at least they’ve got the media on their side now, that’s something. Clive isn’t exactly your average Guardianista, though, so she’s not exactly sure why he’s sending her this, really, especially since they haven’t talked in weeks, until he sends her another text, says: I hope she’ll look like that. I don’t think I’ve ever looked this good.

Martha frowns, scrolls back up trying to find out what the hell he’s on about when - yeah, okay.

The image was loading when she first clicked on the article so she didn’t get to see it right away but now, she gets it. The fact of the matter is: this isn’t the first time. Martha’s had court artists draw her clients before, and there have been a few pictures of her in the press thanks to the Berrian case, but true, this is different. It’s The Guardian, and it’s a sketch, hand drawn, almost entirely black and white, and Martha’s alone in it, standing in court with the wooden decorum around her, a manila file open on the lectern. Her mouth is slightly open, mid-argument, finger adding to a detail by pointing at something on her papers. She’s got her hair tied back, wig on; it’s funny because she doesn’t usually get to see what she projects in court. Martha looks confident there on the sketch, certain, like herself but also someone else, the kind of person she wants to be when she holds onto her desk to keep her hands from shaking. They painted her lips red, she smiles, the only dash of colour in the drawing.

Martha Costello Q.C. the legend reads, representing Mr McBride.

As she scrolls down the article, Martha realises that it is as much about Sean’s trial as it is about her. It gives a rundown of the cases she’s taken on since she took silk, the kinds of wrongs that she tries to right, the kinds of things that she fights for. When they refer to Sean, it’s to point out the flaws in the system. The article is good, well researched.

“We have an adversarial system for a reason,” a senior High Court judge told The Guardian, when asked to comment on the McBride case. “The point, the fiction, maybe, behind it, is that we want a person who is accused of a crime to be able to view, dispute and potentially refute the evidence that is put against them. They are innocent until proven guilty,” he says and laughs, referring to Miss Costello. “No, whatever she tells you, I don’t believe for a minute that Costello truly thinks all her clients are innocent. She does abide by the above principle, though, in all the cases she takes, that’s one thing you can give her. She’s passionate about it. In that, she’s consistent.”

Before switching to Klein Chambers last January, Miss Costello was at Shoe Lane, for the better part of the last twenty years. Such loyalty is not unheard of, in Middle Temple, but it is unusual. “When we became a prosecution set,” Clive Reader, Q.C., Head of Chambers at Shoe Lane explains. “Martha felt that she had to leave. She doesn’t prosecute; it’s part of who she is. We were sorry to lose her, but I’ve always respected that. As a barrister we’ve had our differences but as a friend, she’s probably both the best and the worst thing that’s ever happened to me[laughs]. A cross between Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and a small Rottweiler, as Billy [Editor’s note: Billy Lamb, Shoe Lane’s former senior clerk, now deceased] used to say.”

Martha scrolls back up to the sketch, then, and it’s an odd thought, really, one she’s very, very rarely had in the past but looking at it objectively, now, she thinks she looks beautiful.

Smiles to herself, quiet in the night. Goes back to her conversation with Clive and types: To be fair, I don’t think I ever have, either.

For about a minute afterwards, she sees the dots of the answer he’s typing appear and disappear as he hesitates on what to say next. She thinks about his comment in the piece, wonders again, about his use of the word ‘friend,’ and gives him privacy, sets her phone back on the counter until it beeps.  

Now, you’re just fishing ;).

A chuckle escapes her mouth but the reality of them downs on her with full force and her fingers hover over her keyboard for a good while, too. She wishes he were here, by her side, and I miss you, she almost types, before deleting her words, writes: Thanks, Clive, and hits send.

She looks strong in that drawing, too.

.

By Thursday, Sean and she are coming up on top but Martha feels exhausted, more tired than she’s ever been. The only thing that keeps her going, it feels, is the adrenaline, the feeling of her heart beating fast against her chest as she meets Nick outside court every morning. Today is a big day. Today, they have DCI Fitzpatrick on the stand.

Martha’s ready. She’s spent hours working towards this, knows her questions by heart, the route from a to b, to c, knows how to nail him lying on the stand like she couldn’t last time. She’s prepared, hasn’t slept. Nick rolls his eyes when he sees the bags under hers, but she’s ready.

“How did you come to suspect Sean?”

She’s methodical. Questions after question. When she reviewed the case, she knew it’d be her first. Sean got arrested just two hours after the murder, so how did they know? The body was reported by an anonymous 999 call, probably the killer, upon reflection, someone from the Monk family. Someone who might have put the police onto Sean.

“The family mentioned their son had had a business disagreement with Mr McBride.”

“So, you relied on the information provided by notorious gang members?”

“Who’d just lost a son. We do this all the time, it’s called an investigation.”

Fitzpatrick hates her already, Martha muses, which is fine: the feeling is mutual. She thinks of what Mickey Joy said, how they were two sides of the same coin and well: no, she thinks, at least she’s not corrupt. “Okay,” Martha says, looking up. “So you hear the victim had a business disagreement with my client. What do you do then?”

“We decided we wanted to gather more information so we visited Mr McBride’s club.”

“Was Sean there?”

“No. His business partner was, Mr Brannigan.”

Martha looks up; her pen stops doodling on her pad. “So, you did know Mr Brannigan.”

“Met him during this investigation, yes.”

“And what did Mr Brannigan say?”

“He didn’t know anything. Said that Sean had gone to see Jimmy and that he didn’t know where his business partner was, or where his gun was.”

“Sounds to me like he did know something, then,” Martha hints, smiling. “Almost like he was waiting for you to ask.”

One of the judges interrupts, warns. “Miss Costello, you’re leading the witness, here.” Martha nods, puts her hand up in a half-hearted apology and purses her lips, lets silence fill the room again, pauses to think. It’s too soon to attack Fitzpatrick, really, so she shakes her head, changes the subject.

“What did you do afterwards, before arresting my client? Did you check Mr Brannigan’s story?”

“We did our due diligence, as always.”

Martha smiles, breathes. One, two, three, she counts. “Are you incompetent, DCI Fitzpatrick?” she asks and watches her witness’s mouth fall, like facing a cliff.

“What?”

“See, I’m asking the question because Mr Brannigan pretty much confirmed to us yesterday that he took the Monk family’s money so, I’m asking you, DCI Fitzpatrick, how could you do your ‘due diligence’ as you call it, and not know about this? How could you not understand that your witness was playing you, supported by the Monk family to feed his business partner to the wolves?” she speaks, quick, confident, her voice carrying all the way down to the back of the room. “Again, DCI Fitzpatrick, are you completely incompetent or are you lying to us?”

Fitzpatrick glares, jaw clenched, and if he could spit in her face, Martha is pretty sure that he would. “No, I’m not incompetent, Miss Costello. And what you’re referring to is a theory that isn’t supported by any of the evidence we have. Again, round hole, square peg.”

Martha smirks at that, shakes her head, fakes a frown. “So, the fact that we’ve proven that Mr Brannigan has been receiving bribes for months, now, and the fact that the blood on Sean’s jacket actually seems to corroborate the idea that he attempted to take Jimmy Monk’s pulse rather than shoot him, and the fact that we have no explanation as to why, despite the high amount of manpower and money that was put into this investigation, the evidence was just produced days into the trial – all of that doesn’t mean anything to you, DCI Fitzpatrick? All those questions you can’t answer –”

CW interrupts, then, stands up to speak: “The defence is badgering the witness, my Lord –”

Martha is about to retreat, fake another apology when: “No, I don’t think, so, Miss Warwick,” she hears Lord Hayes respond, to her own total astonishment. Martha looks up, breath coming out a bit short. “I think Miss Costello is asking questions about this police investigation, the answers to which we would all very much want to know. Mr Fitzpatrick, please answer the question.”

“Oh come on, you’ve cooked yourself up your little appeal –”

“Frankly, there are two options here,” Martha interrupts, presents, her gaze hovering between him and the bench. “One,” she reinforces the count with her fingers: “It’s negligence. You decided it was Sean and didn’t look twice at the evidence that didn’t go your way because you were lazy and wanted this solved quickly,” she articulates, staring back. “Or, two, it’s fraud. You knew the Monk’s family plan from the start, knew Brannigan was playing you, and frankly, DCI Fitzpatrick, I don’t know where that leaves us.”

“My learned friend is making allegations she can’t support and is forgetting that the arresting officer is not the accused, here, my Lord –”

“Well, maybe, he should be,” Martha snaps, a bit too loud, covering CW’s last words and immediately curses herself for it. She needs to be smart about this, walk the line between irreverence and rudeness like a court jester, these days.

“Miss Costello,” she hears Lord Hayes reprimand and bites her lip, apologises, takes a second to think.

Martha’s got this thing that she uses sometimes, leaning in closer to the witness as much as she possibly can without actually moving from her spot and staring into their eyes. It makes them think they’re alone. His eyes are blue, she notices, a very, very light shade, like that of older men in retirement homes. It might work with him, she thinks, against all odds.

Martha asks a few more questions Fitzpatrick can’t answer but her voice is tame, now, and for minutes on end, she refuses to let go of his gaze. He gets aggressive, moans, but she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shout back, just lets him get there, patient, like a lioness surveilling its prey, walking him from point a to point b.

“What happened, DCI Fitzpatrick?” she finally asks, again, when the time is right, her voice barely louder than normal speech, a whisper in a courtroom. “What happened in the McBride case?”

He’s not fuming as much, anymore, just quiet, and she wonders if that’s the card she should play maybe, some sort of intimacy, for now, at least.

“You tell me you’re a good cop. So, show it,” she adds. Her heart hammers, in her chest, she has to remind herself to breathe out to keep her hands from shaking. “Was Mr Brannigan a grass? Did you know him before?”

“I told you,” Fitzpatrick repeats, shaking his head. “On the lives of my children –”

She nods, shakes her head. “So, what then?”

And there, he flips. She feels it, in his look, holds her breath, the room so quiet she hears the sound of her own blood pumping in her neck. Fitzpatrick tries to glance away; she holds onto him and refuses to let go. “You have to understand –” he starts.

His stare drifts to the judges, to CW, confused; Martha shifts at her desk, taps her finger against the wood. “Look at me,” she calls and he does, his eyes finding hers again. “Tell me.”

And there, she gets him. “We were trying to protect him –” he starts.

This time, she doesn’t interrupt. She lets him finish.

.

“Well, shit,” she hears in her ear as they leave the courtroom, Nick walking fast behind her. They stop on the street outside, she’s shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, the self-restraint she had to exercise not to betray anything in front of Fitzpatrick.

Martha looks at Nick, thinks: yeah, shit.

They’re standing by the gates, close to where she used to smoke when she still could and it’s odd, how her heart doesn’t seem to slow down. She doesn’t want to stop here so she keeps walking, crossing the street to head back to Chambers. Martha feels restless, keeps turning Fitzpatrick’s words inside her head. They knew he wasn’t guilty, she thinks, from the fucking start. “That was unbelievable, Martha,” Nick says and smiles at her.

His features are bit blurry, before her eyes; she blinks, shakes her head, keeps herself focused on avoiding the people walking on Fleet Street until they reach the way down to Middle Temple Lane.

“I mean, I think it would have felt better if it had actually been this great conspiracy rather than them just –”

“Just what?” she snaps, glancing up, her heels tapping a rhythm against the pavement. “Hearing Fitzpatrick admit that the Monk family told them it was Sean, which they believed at face value, rushed to make an arrest because it would look bad in the press if the gang killed him first and then covered up their fuck up? Sean’s in jail because of them, Nick. It makes me fucking sick.”

Nick stops, is quiet for a bit. They make it through the gates and down the cobblestone path, taking a left towards the church. “Well, when you say it like that –” Nick says, sighs. “It was a great cross, Martha. Best one I’ve ever seen.”

And, she’s about to counter with another jab about how it comes too bloody late but strangely, she can’t find her voice. They’re walking under the archways, just the both of them, trying to cross from Pump Court to the other side – it’s ironic, really, how close her new Chambers are to Shoe Lane - when she stops, still. The sun is bright, white light flashing before her eyes, she feels Nick’s look on her but can’t distinguish his features, can hear her own blood pumping in her ears, again. She thinks of that copper, of Sean, and it goes thump, thump, thump, against her neck. Nick speaks, she thinks, hears a vague echo in her head but thump, thump, thump, her heartbeat goes in her ear, and covers his words. Nick moves, but suddenly, there are about a million arches around her, her head spins, and –

.

Eyes closed, she hears footsteps. Voices, vaguely, like from the other side of a canyon.

“She just fainted –”

“What do you mean, she ‘just fainted?’”

“I don’t know, okay? She was angry, cross-examining DCI Fitzpatrick, and then I said something and she just –”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she hears one of the voices say before she hears running and feels someone sit down next to her, touching her shoulder. The voice is familiar – of course, it is - and it’s not Nick’s. She sighs, wishes it were.

“Martha?” Clive says, shaking her a bit. “Martha?”

Her eyes open on his face, vision still slightly blurry. She sees blond hair, blue eyes; her back hurts. She closes her eyelids again. Back to sleep -

“Nick, she’s awake,” Clive says, too loud; she rolls her eyes. When she looks up again, another face joins Clive’s blurry features in her field of vision: dark hair, blue eyes, too.

“Martha, are you okay?” Nick asks, voice full of concern; she lets out a moan, tries to move –

As soon as she rises from the ground a bit, pushing herself up on her elbows, the Earth starts spinning again; she feels someone’s hand behind her head before it hits the ground.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, then, she thinks.

“Marth –” Clive starts; she hears herself sigh.

“’M fine,” she groans. Her back hurts, her head hurts, her neck hurts but the checklist stops there, thankfully.

“Are you –” Clive starts and behind her annoyance, she can’t help but smile a little at the worry in his voice. He may not love her, anymore, but he definitely loves that baby, doesn’t he?

“’re fine,” she amends, groaning as she tries to move her head again. “’f I’d miscarried, I’d know,” she adds, the words coming out a bit louder and stronger than she meant them to. It was meant as a joke but Clive doesn’t seem to share her sense of humour and throws a worried, questioning glance at Nick, who in turn throws it back at her. She almost lets a laugh escape her lips but it quickly turns into a somewhat painful cough when her body shakes a bit. Her mouth is dry; she’s thirsty – hungry, too – definitely doesn’t feel ready to get up quite yet, so: “Water,” she mutters as she shuts her eyes again, listens to the wind rustling in the leaves of trees and for the first time in months: rests.

.

Clive drives her home, later. They leave her car in the car park near Chambers and take his; she’s so tired she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the back of the seat, lolling between the headrest and the window to her left. She only wakes up when the car stops moving, twenty minutes later, parks in the street outside her building.   

Martha blinks a few times, warming up to her surroundings. It’s summer again, strangely enough, and the leaves of the trees in her courtyard gently shade part of the street, green and lively, breeze slowly rocking the top branches.

“Thanks,” she says, stealing a glance at Clive.

There is a moment, there, when she thinks that she should get out, walk back to her flat and try to forget about him again until the next time they run into each other. His glance catches hers, though, eyes slightly green with the light cast by the sun through the leaves of the trees. “You should sleep,” he tells her, his voice quiet, not as an order but more as a plea, as someone who cares.

“You’re only saying that because you’re on Caroline’s side,” Martha smiles, looking up at him. “I should work is what I should do. Speech tomorrow,” she adds, running a hand over her face. She looks at Clive, sighs. “I need to win this.”

“From what I hear, you already have.”

She rolls her eyes a bit, not at what he says but at what people say, and the things she’s been reading in the press. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she says, shaking her head. “You and I both know that until the verdict comes out –”

“Marth, you’re going to win this,” Clive tells her, firm, holding her gaze. His hands fall from the wheel to his lap, he turns a bit to look at her. “I know it,” he adds, smiles. “Nick knows it. The whole of Middle Temple bloody knows it and is hanging onto your every word.”

She looks away, her jaw clenched. “Well, if I do,” she says and catches his glance again, like she can’t choose whether or not she wants to see his face. “It won’t be thanks to you.”

Clive takes the hit, quiet, for a bit. “No,” he says, finally, looking at his fingers tapping a rhythm against the leather of the wheel. “It won’t.”

Right. Martha didn’t think he would agree, frankly, was gearing up for another fight, so now, she doesn’t know what to say, really, sits in silence for a little while longer, studying the stains on the glass of his windshield. Martha likes her cars to be pretty – Clive’s made enough comments about that before, joking that she only picked her current one because she looked good in it (he wasn’t wrong, in truth) – but at least, it means she has them cleaned regularly. Martha steals a glance at him and it reminds her of the end with Jerôme, how she felt like she was getting pushed out of a train she didn’t necessarily want to let go.

Martha didn’t necessarily want to hold onto it either, though.

“I’m not on her side, you know?” she hears him say, later, and freezes, her fingers on the handle of the door. “Caroline,” Clive specifies, glance trained on the street, in front of them. “You said –” he speaks, stops, shakes his head. “I’m not on Caroline’s side,” he clarifies, catching Martha’s glance, pausing.

Martha acknowledges his words with a nod but doesn’t say anything else; she feels Clive’s look on the side of her face but it’s her turn to avoid him, now, to stare out the window, at the lady walking by with her Jack Russell on a leash. The car goes completely quiet when he pulls the key from the ignition and the low hum of the air conditioning dies; she looks at him but his gaze is fixed on the wheel. She breathes in, breathes out. “What are you doing Tuesday morning?” Martha asks, before she can think.

“I, er, don’t know –”

“I have an appointment,” she says, quickly. She was trying to push it to the week after, earlier, actually, because it’s next week and she’s terrified she won’t get to be there when the verdict comes in, but they said she was already late, already at fifteen weeks, something, so –

“What kind of appointment?”

There’s a hint of worry in Clive’s voice when he speaks and looks up at her. Yeah, she guesses, a few weeks back, it could have been that kind of appointment as well.

She smiles, though, now, bites her bottom lip, looks down at her hands. “Scan,” she says. It’s odd: she feels a bit silly, shy, telling him. “We, er,” she hesitates, looks up, catches his gaze. “We get to see it,” she breathes, a discreet smile tugging at her lips again. “If you want to come, I mean,” she pauses, quickly, shakes her head and rambles on, doesn’t want to let him speak, doesn’t want to let him say: ‘No.’ “And again,” she adds. “You might be right and I might lose it or it may not even have a heartbeat but –”

She feels his hand on her thigh for half a second before it moves away; it stops her mid-sentence. It feels cold, when he takes it off, like something’s missing. “Marth, I –”

“Don’t –”

It’s the second time she says it, isn’t it? The second time she doesn’t want to hear whatever he has to say, doesn’t know if she’ll ever want to hear what he has to say now. Another fight, or an apology, or something in between she just –

“What I want to say is,” she speaks, decisive, hands on her knees. “If you want to come, come. If you don’t, you don’t have to.”

He catches her gaze, then, and she sees something in his eyes, something she used to see before he kissed her, sometimes. “I’d love to,” he says, smiles.

So: Martha nods, then, her hand on the handle of the door again - this time, he doesn’t stop her. “Okay,” she tells him, as the car clicks open, the hot air from the outside hitting the side of her body first, before making its way to him. “I’ll text you.”

.

It’s later, after she’s taken a bath, eaten and napped for a bit that she opens the bag he gave her. She’d left the car already; he ran after her and put it in her hand before she could even open her front door, asked her not to get mad at him about it and disappeared. It’s this kind of solid, paper and plastic shopping bag, coloured a pale shade of blue, the brand written in white script on the front. She told herself she’d open it tomorrow, when the trial was over and it wouldn’t matter whether she actually did get mad or not, but Martha’s drinking tea, now, sitting at her kitchen table, looking for inspiration to write her speech and when she sees it, remembers it, she cuts the little bit of tape shutting the bag together with a pair of scissors. They’re wrapped in tissue paper but as soon as she sees them, she knows why he thought she might scream.

She’d insisted, back then. No maternity clothes before fifteen weeks, at least, and no baby things before then, either. ‘I’m serious, Clive,’ she laughed as he browsed the Internet for stupid bodysuits that said things like: I was Daddy’s fastest swimmer. She broke her promise about maternity clothes, the other day, so really, she can’t be mad at him for breaking his.

They’re tiny shoes, the tiniest shoes she’s ever seen, in fact, the both of them fit in her hand. They’re wool, soft, dark blue – almost black - with a line of white lining at the top and bottom, big red pompoms on the front. They make her think of a flower, a poppy maybe. She studies them before closing her eyes and smiles, large and honest, plays with them for a bit, holding them into her free palm.

The thing is: there’s a card, too, inside the bag. It’s the first thing she saw when she opened it, let the tip of her finger trace over Clive’s handwriting and swallowed heavily, closed her eyes, too. She takes it again, now, and smiles, bittersweet.

For January, he wrote, his script quick on the paper. She can picture him, scrawling the words at the edge of his desk in Chambers, on top of a binder, slipping the card inside the bag before rushing into court. Like a secret, like things you can’t say.

Love,

Clive.

She reads the words, again and again until she can picture them from memory. Her other hand rests against the bump of her stomach and she feels the rise and fall of her breaths, hopes it breathes, too.

She sighs, her hand against the fabric of her shirt, whispers: “Stay. Please.”

I love you, she thinks.

Chapter Text

xiii.

Dreamt I was back with pirates and cats in my Somerville. The girl with the alphabet shirt, covered in dirt, lives on a hill. Well, (…) are you still racing stray dogs across the old stream? My neighbourhood queen, are you still kissing cowboys that cry, (…)?

Josephine - Teitur

It will be late afternoon. She’ll be standing on the left side of the room by of the window, the sun coming through the glass as she’ll speak. It will be court and wooden benches, and tapestries, and she will be part of a decorum that she loves to hate. A ritual, immutable traditions, what the court in Johnny Foster’s case would have called deference – or reverence, maybe.

Sometimes, Martha wonders how they got there. Years ago, juniors in Magistrate’s Court, underground rooms that permanently reeked of their daily procession of drunks, heroin addicts and all of society’s poorest, most distressed failures, to Appeals, now, where barristers have the time and the means to worry about what their speech will sound like. Martha sits at her kitchen table, surrounded by a pair of baby shoes, empty cups of tea and half a dozen open binders in front of her and it’s kind of a secret but even after over fifteen years, she still writes everything down. Her speeches, the questions that she asks on cross, she scribbles them by hand, writes sentences and repeats them out loud, draws lines over the words that she doesn’t like. Replaces them, reads them again. It’s a bit of a joke, by now, but she does like the sound of her own voice. She knows how it works, what it can do, the higher pitch that it takes when she gets angry, the way it breaks for a breath at a comma, pauses at a full stop. She’s learnt to let the right things sink in.

For instance, she won’t open with a quote, hates people who open with quotes. In university, they called that an argument from authority. She’s never liked authority very much.

Her speeches, they always start the same. ‘My Lords,’ she writes, Court of Appeal. Sometimes, it’s Your Honour, sometimes, Members of the Jury. She likes juries. Clive calls them dumb and irrational but they’re people. She likes people. This time, though, she couldn’t convince them. So here they are, she guesses.

‘Sean McBride,’ she writes. The words roll off her tongue like that day when he said he used to think they’d both go to heaven and she called him a piece of work. Her pen stops. She doesn’t know where to begin.

‘Tell a story,’ Alan said, once upon a time. She was younger; he was wiser. ‘A good one, that is.’

Well, the problem is that this time, she’s got too many stories to tell. There’s that one time when she screamed at Sean for a good half hour after he pretended to put a spider up in her shirt. That other time when they went to the beach in Blackpool and she pushed him in the water, fully clothed, freezing, his hair drenched and cold as he hung onto her, brought her down with him. Sometimes, she laughed so hard she cried. Sometimes, she actually cried, too. She kissed him on a prison bench and the walls stood around them with moulding growing at the window frame, the guards’ heavy boots hitting the ground of the corridor outside. Maybe that’s why they say ‘never represent a friend,’ she thinks, maybe it’s because you’ll have too many stories to tell.

Sean McBride was arrested on the 24^th of March 2014 for the murder of Jimmy Monk, she writes again, factual. She knows that’s what Alan would have told her: don’t make it personal, Martha. So, she writes the story of Sean’s case. Talks about the first instance and the appeal, and the testimonies and the facts that don’t align. His only possible verdict: not guilty.

.

Around 3 a.m., she sort of drowses for a bit, has this weird nightmare where she’s waiting around with him in a hotel room and there’s a knock on the door, and she thinks: they’re going to kill us. She barely has time to see the end of the barrel of the gun before her eyelids flutter open because well, you can’t die in your own dreams.

“Ready?” Nick asks, the next morning. They’re standing outside court waiting for Sean’s solicitor and all Martha can think about is how badly she wants a fag.

“Ready.”

.

In Nottingham, Clive had smiled, she remembers. He’d looked at her when they left court with a loud and triumphant not guilty verdict and said: ‘You never stick to the script, do you?’

She’d never really thought about it like that before, but the way she writes things and the way she says them don’t necessarily match up. Sometimes, she goes off track after a page or two, sometimes even before the second sentence. She thinks writing it out the night before or during the fifteen minute break the judges award in the lower courts is just a trick for her brain to collect her thoughts, to organise things that should not only make sense to her, but to other people. She’d always guessed that’s how everybody worked before his words rung in her ear that afternoon. 

Martha laughed, asked: ‘Are you complaining?’

They were walking down the streets of a new, unfamiliar place; she had no idea of where they were going. They’d had thirteen co-defendants, though, and only two not guilty-s. Nothing else really mattered, then.

‘That’s not what I said,’ he grinned. ‘Just a bit unpredictable.’

She puffed out a laugh, caught his gaze and bit her lip. Flirt. ‘By now, you should know that I am very unpredictable, Clive.’

.

“My Lords,” she says, now. “Sean McBride –”

Stops. Just like the way she stopped last night. Closes her eyes. Breathes.

“I was once told Sean McBride reached out to me because I’m the only lawyer he knows,” she says, a quick smile tugging at the corner of her lips. We grew up together, she thinks, and remembers running her fingers in his jet black hair as his stare now digs holes into the back of her head. “I guess I don’t know if that was a blessing or a curse,” she adds, lightly, gets a few subtle grins from her audience. She needs to win them over, she knows, not bore them with things they already know.

Of course, she smiles, this is personal.

“This is the most important case of my career,” she speaks, then, and hopes they really understand what that means. For the next thirty minutes, she knows that she’ll go deep, detail evidence, tear CW’s case apart like she’s been doing for a week, talk circumstances, reasonable doubt, and mention all the things that matter, that she’s got written down on her papers. But what she wants them to know, too, is why it matters. “Not because I know him,” she adds, her gaze focused on the bench. “But because this is about justice.”

.

Later, when the court retires to deliberate, she goes to see him. Her plan was to go for a walk, initially, like her father used to when he couldn’t sleep. He’d take her hand in his, after dinner, and they’d walk down to the shop, get ice cream that melted in their hands. Martha had these yellow rain boots on her feet, never wanted to take them off.

“What do you think?” Sean asks when she sees him, barely looking up from the floor.

“I don’t know.”

Because, frankly, like it always is, her speech is the beginning of a new waiting game. One where the thoughts won’t stop swirling in her head until the verdict comes in. Could I have made that point better? she’ll think. Said that differently? It’s only Friday; the decision won’t come in until Monday afternoon, at the very least, so Martha has a long weekend ahead of her, doesn’t she?

Nick is in the room so maybe that’s what stops Sean from saying more, not until he glances up at her and smiles, lightly touches her forearm. “I do know other lawyers, you know?” he says and this time, makes her laugh.

.

She took Clive on a walk, she remembers, when they came back to London after the triumph. ‘What else have you got to do?’ she asked, smiling, knowing full well he had about as much work on his plate as she did and about as little desire to actually go back to Chambers and do it. The sunshine was light on his face and they strolled along gravel paths in Hyde Park, the shade of Martha’s sunglasses adding a slight tint to his skin, daisies everywhere in the grass.

She likes the walks best in early Spring when the sun’s bright but the wind’s cold against her cheeks, likes the streets and the canals, and the birds in the parks. Sometimes, she climbs up Primrose Hill and looks at the buildings far away, wonders the kind of defence she would draft for herself.

Every time Clive glanced at her, that day, it brought her back to the startled look he’d thrown her way in the morning, when he’d opened his eyes and found her still there in bed, staring right back at him. ‘You’re still here,’ he observed, voice groggy and unfiltered, surprised. She lay flat on her stomach under the quilt, her glance falling upon his.

‘It’s my hotel room, Clive,’ she smiled. Didn’t want to point out that considering his form, she should have been the worried one. ‘Where else would I go?’

He laughed next to her and when they got back to London that afternoon, they ate ice cream – his suggestion, not hers – found a bench to sit on in the park, watched kids play football. She told him about her dad and how secretly relieved she’d feel every time she got back to London after driving up to see him, in the last few years of his life, how much she loved coming here and getting her life back, as though nothing had ever happened.

‘Some things are meant to stay in one place,’ she said.

He smiled, a short, quiet laugh escaping his lips. ‘Nice way to put it.’ He gave her a side glance, raised an eyebrow. ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?’

He didn’t sound angry. Maybe a bit hurt. She kept doing that to him, didn’t she? Let a few years pass by, enough for them to almost forget about each other, before she danced with him, his hands on her hips to Norah Jones in a hotel bar and let her lips touch his, just for a moment, a moment too long. Martha smiled at Clive in the park, said: ‘Nottingham’s hardly Vegas.’

Clive had one of those cones, the ones where gelato’s come out of a machine in a spiral, with sprinkles on top; she laughed when he got some at the tip of his nose, laughed so that he’d smile again, too.

‘What?’ she grinned, curious and amused, swallowing a bit of ice.

Clive shook his head and glanced away for a fraction of a second before focusing back on her. ‘You have a great laugh, Martha Costello,’ he said and kissed her, her mouth slightly open under his. He tasted like sugar and vanilla, like something good you can’t defend.

.

“Come on,” Nick says when they leave the courthouse. She’s contemplating her plan to go for a walk again. “I’ll buy you a non-alcoholic drink.”

It’s starting to rain outside, droplets gradually tainting more and more ground. Martha doesn’t feel like a walk, anymore, so takes a left towards the pub.

Smiles: “Okay.”

.

They spend the evening laughing at Nick’s antics, pretending that the whole film of Sean’s trial isn’t on loop in the back of both of their minds, from the retelling of Nick’s many etiquette faux-pas when he met Niamh’s parents to the fact that he forgot to get her flowers for her birthday last week.

“Apologise,” Martha tells him with a grin; he rolls his eyes.

Sometimes, she wishes her life were as simple as his seems to be.

 “What?” she asks, later, when she catches him throwing her a strange look.

“I just hadn’t seen you smile in a while,” he replies.

.

For good measure, Martha drives up to Bury, that weekend. In Bolton, there’s no house, anymore, and home hasn’t really felt like home in a long time, anyway. She pulls up in Roy’s driveway and already kind of wants to leave, maybe go check up on their old place, find out if the family that moved in have finally repainted the door, if their children have found out about the neighbour’s roof. It’s childish, maybe, but Martha misses the photographs on the wall and her father’s clothes stored in the basement.

Her mum does seem happy to see her, though, has her settling in “Dick’s old bedroom” (Roy’s son, Martha gathers), gives her a tiny, baby bodysuit as a present, white with sunflowers on – “I thought it would work for a boy or a girl,” she says, smiling, and Martha says her thanks, polite, trying not to think of the heavy, nervous weight that rests on her stomach whenever she thinks of the baby.

The appointment for her scan is getting closer and closer, now, and every time she thinks about it, she thinks they’re going to say that it’s gone. Or without a heartbeat. Or not viable for some other reason that she won’t understand. She tries not to talk to it, or about it, tries not to put her hand on the bump on her belly too often, to pretend that it’s not there until she actually knows it is.

Her mother, on the other hand, won’t shut up about it. It’s somewhat odd, frankly, because she wasn’t nearly as excited last time but now, it’s a constant talk of cribs and strollers, and butterflies in the air. The weather is shit (as always), but frankly it was either that or pacing in her flat in London, thinking about Sean possibly rotting in jail until the end of times so strangely, Martha’s mother’s misplaced excitement is somewhat preferable. Martha doesn’t know if she’s trying to make amends for her reaction on the phone the other night or if the interest is genuine but on a certain level, it’s nice to feel like someone else cares.

Roy, however, is pretty much the antithesis of tactfulness. At lunch on Saturday, he quizzes her about Clive, before she’s even had time to unpack. “Roy, honey, I think Martha’s a bit tired,” her mum tries, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from sensitive topics. For her to step in, Martha thinks, she must really look like shit. 

“I’m just asking, here, Maureen,” Roy counters, looking at Martha. A battle of wills ensues and in the end, Martha’s the one who gives up first, casts her mother a look that says it’s fine, that she’s not going to get angry over this.

She’s spent too much time being angry over Clive, lately.

So, yes, she says, answers all the questions that Roy didn’t ask last time, she met him at work. No, they don’t live together. No, she laughs, he’s not married. Yes, he knows about the baby. Yes, they’re going to share responsibilities.

“Are you two together, darling?”

Now, there’s a trick question so, of course, it’s her mum’s only one. If she says no: she has to explain what happened. If she says yes: she lies. So: “I’m sorry,” Martha says instead, making a show of yawning as she gets up from her chair before anyone can really object. “I’m exhausted, I think I’ll go rest for a bit. Thanks for the meal, Mum.”

The difference between now and when she was a teenager, again, is that she’s learnt to avoid unnecessary headaches.

.

She dozes off for about half an hour afterwards (guesses she wasn’t completely lying about the exhaustion), dreams about the baby being dead in her womb and wakes up thinking that perhaps, there’s a reason why she’s never been a fan of mid-afternoon naps. Nick’s texted to check up on her in the interim so she replies, dutifully, asks how London is doing without her and if scrolling through his phone as he walks is still the best way for him to bump into people.

Martha teases, sure, but that’s just because Nick texts her often. It’s a generational thing, she supposes. He texts her about the case, about Chambers, or sometimes just to say: ‘Hi,’ when he’s done something and is actively trying to get back into her good graces. Over the past few weeks, he’s been consistently on the top of her list of messages received, although she’s noticed, discretely peeking over his shoulder, Niamh is consistently on top of his. Below him, on Martha’s phone, Charlotte remains, her messages always short and to the point: a hearing has been rescheduled, a late return needs tending to or, of course, the usual request: Miss, a word. Jo is third at the moment, because her five-people tribe is in London next week and she wanted family-friendly dining recommendations. Frankly, Martha didn’t have much of a clue on that one.

Then, well. Sometimes, she almost texts him. It’s a bit of a game with herself: she opens the thread, looks at the last messages they exchanged when he sent her that flattering article from the Guardian and then types something funny, or silly, that she’d like to tell him. Now, for instance, she smiles as her fingers hit the keyboard: I think my mum wants to see the guy who got her daughter pregnant again.

It’s funny, would have made him laugh, weeks ago. She wouldn’t send it for the world, now, of course, but sometimes, she lets her mind wander and guess what he’d respond, make out the sound of his speech in her ear, just like she used to phone Billy’s answering machine in order to remember the way he’d say his name. Martha wonders how wrong it would feel if she admitted to herself that she misses Clive.

Now, though, as she types, suddenly, she stops, almost at the end of the last word. Three dots appear on his side of the conversation, then go blank.

Quickly, she deletes everything, hopes he didn’t notice the dots on her end. Sits up, phone in hand, doesn’t move.

For a few seconds, nothing happens and shit, she curses, what the hell did he want to say?

She waits a bit, wonders if he’s gone, now. Should she ask? Ignore it? Write something insignificant to make him think that’s what she wanted to tell him in the first place?

Oh, what the hell? the voice in her head says. What are you? Sixteen?

She starts typing again: I –

Except then, of course, his dots return. Alright, she decides, deleting her own one-letter word, she’s just going to let him type, then.

But then again, his dots disappear. She waits, watches a minute go by: nothing. Maybe it was just a bug, she muses, maybe he wasn’t typing anything at all.

She’s about to give up, lock her screen and head downstairs to see what her mum and Roy are up to when her phone starts vibrating in her hand. Clive’s name is right there, she sees, and all she’d have to do to hear his voice, now, would be to take the call. Sometimes, she wishes Billy could still call, too.

(She saw him, this morning. Or thought she did, anyway. She’d left her car in Chambers so she took the Tube to Temple station before heading to Bury, stopped at the Prêt on Fleet Street for some food. She was sitting at a table, eating a croissant when this guy walked in. Fifty-something, short, large shoulders, she thought –

Pathetic.

He turned around and when she saw his face, she thought of the way Billy had greeted her and Clive when they got back from Nottingham, trying desperately to fit around each other like nothing had happened.

“You look good, Miss,” he commented as the both of them entered the clerks’ room to pick up their mail. Clive had his back to Billy, she remembers, raised a discreet eyebrow at her. “The Midlands treat you well?”

She smiled, mail in hand, made her way back to the door. “Just a different lipstick, Billy,” she lied.

“Oh, don’t change it, Miss,” he spoke as she moved back towards the door. She could see him glance at Clive from the corner of her eye, didn’t quite know what to make of it. Clive smiled. Something naughty and annoyingly cocky. “You know us boys love the red.”)

.

She doesn’t ghost Clive intentionally. It’s just that by the time she’s snapped out of the memory, her phone’s stopped ringing. She waits for a voicemail that never comes. She could call back, of course, but he felt close, for a minute, and evaporated again. Honestly, she doesn’t know if she wants to know what he’s got to say, doesn’t know if she wants to catch him. She overheard him speak on the phone a few days back and his voice haunted her for days. It was dark, late, she was leaving Chambers and saw him leaning against one of the buildings on the way out.

‘Okay, Mum,’ she heard him say, in a way that made her think that things were anything but okay, really. ‘Flowers and apologies, I’m sure that will work.’

There was a bit of silence, on his end, and Martha knew she should have left. If not secret, the conversation was private. Yet, as soon as he opened his mouth again, she found herself rooted to the ground, unable to move. In hindsight, she thinks, it’s not what he said that got to her, it’s the way his words cut. She knew the story but had never heard him speak about it like that before.

‘Oh, don’t you dare use Dad and you for relationship advice,’ he argued, curt, cold. Martha barely dared to breathe. ‘He fucked his way around town for twenty years and you barely even blinked.’

Later, Martha heard him sigh, apologise. She stood, immobile in the dark, could picture him shaking his head, the exhaustion in his words. He was too engrossed in his own thoughts to see her.

‘I shouldn’t have said that, I just –’ he started, struggled to explain. ‘I just miss her, is all.’

.

In  Bury, later that afternoon, Martha’s mum talks her into stepping out of the house for a bit, walk Roy’s dog down the river path. It’s a Spaniel, white with brown patches over his back and ears, long hair muddy at the belly. He looks happy, Martha thinks, wigging his tail running up and down the grass. She glances at her phone as her mother bends down to pick up his ball, thinks that she probably should text Clive, for all the things that she can’t say.

10 AM, she writes, fingers hovering over the keyboard. This time, she waits for dots on his side that don’t appear. For the scan, on Tuesday. St Thomas’.

When Clive answers, her mum and she are on their way home. There’s a bit of a drizzle in the air and they’re about to cross the street, Martha’s got Padfoot (Roy’s granddaughter picked the name, apparently) on a leash, pulls out her phone from the pocket of her jeans. I’ll be there, she reads, smiles. :).

“I don’t know if you’re together,” Martha’s mum suddenly interrupts, grabbing the leash from her hand. Right, left, they cross to the other side. The dog still has his ball in his mouth, wet with a mix of mud and saliva. “But I can tell that you love him, you know?” she smiles, shrugs, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “It shows on your face when you think about him.”

.

Martha texts Clive again, later, when the lights are out, wonders if she’s turning into Nick.

I know we need to talk, she writes, quick, doesn’t let herself think before she hits send. I just need time.

His response comes within a second, like he knew she was going to get back to him, eventually. Me too, he just says.

She closes her eyes and hopes to sleep.  

.

The drive home on Sunday is quiet but as soon as Martha is in London again, the dreams come back. She barely sleeps, lying there staring at the ceiling, thinking of Sean and guns, and life sentences. Monday comes and goes and her phone remains in her hand the whole time, but never rings. It’s five o’clock when Nick walks into her room; she’s been trying to focus on her next hearing, her next case at the end of the week but all she’s done is spend hours reading Wikipedia articles on stuff she’s already forgot about. Vanessa’s working in the office so Nick and Martha step out to talk, walk and sit on a bench by the fountain. She misses Shoe Lane for the view, the little railing they had overlooking the church.

“If it’s tomorrow morning –” she starts, hesitant, doesn’t know what else to say.

Tomorrow morning is the scan appointment. Tomorrow morning could be the verdict. Since Martha can’t be in two places at once, she thought of cancelling the appointment this afternoon, thought about wanting to be there if they were to take Sean down again. She rang the hospital in a panic and got this idiot on the phone, Natalie, and her very patronizing tone. ‘You’re already at fifteen weeks, Ma’am,’ she said, as if that, in and of itself, was utterly unbelievable. ‘Push it back again and we’ll soon be at a mid-pregnancy scan. Is that what you want?’

From the woman’s tone, Martha gathered that whatever that meant, it was not something that she should want. Hung up the phone, called the lady a bitch after the line disconnected.

“If it’s tomorrow morning – which it probably won’t be,” Nick amends, catching her gaze. Martha guesses he’s trying to sound reassuring but she’s not sure whether just talking about it makes her anxiety better or worse. “I’ll call you as soon as I know, I promise.”

Martha nods, sighs, watches the water flow in the fountain. It’s been a long, hot day; it was thirty-two degrees last time she checked her phone, just wishes there was a tiny, little bit of wind to graze her face.

She sighs, nervously taps her fingers against the fabric of her skirt.

“They’re going to refuse the appeal, aren’t they?” she says and it’s almost as if she’s talking to herself, letting the thoughts run past her mouth. “They’re going to refuse the appeal tomorrow morning, and then they’re going to tell me the baby’s not viable.”

She speaks the words before she can filter them out, lets her nerves tell Nick things she would never have admitted to him otherwise. Nick knows about the baby – both babies – but they don’t talk about it. She doesn’t like that this is a weakness that people can see.

She sees him smile, though, when she looks at him.

“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” he says and Martha feels the corners of her mouth raise; she makes herself look away again.

“Is this your way of saying I’m hormonal?” she laughs but yeah, she guesses that she probably is, a bit.

Nick shakes his head. “Your words, not mine,” he says with a smile, before looking at his watch.

“Going home?” she asks as he stands up. Martha doesn’t move, thinks she might stay outside for a while. Nick smiles down at her.

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “Flowers to buy, apologies to make –”

Martha smiles, nods. “Good,” she says, wishing, again, that her life were that simple.

.

The next morning, she’s running late. Couldn’t make herself get out of bed, then couldn’t leave the paperwork she’d started going through, then again couldn’t decide on what to wear. It’s ten past ten when she finally makes her way through the entrance of the hospital, down a series of corridors that take her through an outside patio and back inside again, to finally find Clive sitting on a chair outside the exam room. She’s opted for a pair of black pregnancy leggings and a long t-shirt in the end, figured that that would be easier to deal with than a work dress. She’ll go home and change before going into Chambers, she’s decided.

“It’s fine,” Clive gets up as he sees her half-walking, half-running down the corridor. “I told the people who were after us to go in early. We’re at 10:20, now,” he adds and Martha hears herself breathe a sigh of relief, setting her handbag on the chair next to him. He sits back down and watches her catch her breath.

There’s something intriguing in his look when he eyes her up and down, like he’s never seen her in leggings and a t-shirt before.

“What?” Martha says, slightly annoyed, taking her phone in her hand to make sure the ring is on. If Nick calls, she thinks -

“Nothing.”

Clive says that shaking his head, with a smile on his face; she catches his gaze, definitely thinks there’s something, rolls her eyes at him. “Seriously, Clive, what? Do I have lipstick on my teeth?”

He laughs, then, shakes his head again. Martha raises an eyebrow at him, there’s a strange sheepish look in his eyes when he says: “No. You just look, er,” he starts, seems to search for his words. “Actually pregnant, now.”

Oh, she thinks. That.

She crosses his gaze, frowns, her look follows his to fall on her stomach and well, she guesses she sees herself every day in the mirror so she doesn’t notice it much anymore. She has grown a bit bigger in the last couple of weeks and although she usually hides it under her clothes, the fitted t-shirt and leggings do hug her body tight this morning, so yeah, she guesses he’s right –

I am pregnant, she thinks, almost says, but doesn’t. Instead, Martha sits down next to him, crosses her legs at the ankles. Clive’s hand is flat on the armrest between them, she has to resist an urge to take it in hers.

He steals a quick glance at her before staring back at the door in front of them; for a moment, there’s this familiar feeling in her gut that tells her the boy next to her is about to kiss her. 

She waits.

He doesn’t.

.

First, the doctor goes over her test results. Martha had her blood drawn, last week, and they tested her for a number of things, most of which she doesn’t understand, but according to the person they see, it looks like by some strange twist of fate, it all comes back looking normal. Clive doesn’t even seem surprised while Martha’s heartbeat, on the other hand, goes through the roof. It’s funny, how little she worried about these things last time around, how she saw it as a given that unless she had an abortion, the foetus was automatically going to turn into a baby, how she didn’t even wait a month to tell Billy. Sure, she didn’t want everyone to know, but it was more about her career not being impacted than anything else.

Later on is the scary part, though. On a chair, Martha’s instructed to lie back, somewhere between a flat and a seated position and frankly, feels particularly vulnerable, there. Clive sits next to her and if they were a thing, a couple, they’d be sweet and in love, and she’d hold his hand, but they’re not. So, Martha doesn’t. The monitor is turned towards the specialist which she knows is to make sure they don’t see anything they’re not supposed to see but just ends up making her feel more irritated at the secrecy of it all. They take her blood pressure so Martha makes herself breathe, calm down, but –

“Nervous?” the doctor asks her, smiling as she reads the numbers on her instruments.

Martha glances at Clive, bites her lip. “A bit.”

.

Her leggings are pulled down to her hips, her shirt lifted. “Okay, this may be a bit cold, yeah?” the doctor says and Martha, nods, automatically, stares at the ceiling.

She hates not being in control. Hates the fact that the two most important things in her life right now – the appeal, the baby – are both her entire responsibility if they go sour and yet, are completely out of her grasp, now. The gel is cold, indeed, she feels it on her stomach, but it’s so hot, roasting in here without air conditioning that it doesn’t even really feel uncomfortable. Martha swallows, heavily, sees the doctor about to apply the probe to her stomach when a loud shrill echoes in the room.

At first, she thinks it comes from the monitor. But no, it’s a ringtone, she realises almost immediately afterwards. Martha glances to her side, at the little table where she put her keys, wallet and –

Phone. In a millisecond, before the doctor or Clive can even react, her look sets on the screen. She hopes for Charlotte, or her mum, or the guy from Sky who’s been trying to book an appointment to come fix her Internet for a week now. Anyone but –

Nick.

And, of course, it is Nick.

On the monitors, her heartbeat goes through the roof. She’s specifically told Nick not to call unless he had news, she remembers, so it means that he does and suddenly, the room is too small for Martha to breathe. She grabs the phone off the table, her finger about to slide on the screen when –

“Oh, I’m sorry, you can’t use that here,” the doctor says next to her. “With the machines, it’s not –”

The woman sounds apologetic, sure, but she also doesn’t seem to realise how important this is. “Sorry, it’s urgent –” Martha starts but –

“No,” she shakes her head. “I really have to insist –”

The phone’s rung twice, already. Three more times and Martha will lose it. She needs to decide now, she thinks, as it rings again, her brain in slow motion. The scan or the phone. She needs to leave this room, needs to –

“I’ll take it.”

It’s Clive’s voice, next to her. He grabs the phone from her hand before she can really think –

“Clive, it’s –” she starts explaining, fingers brushing -

“I know,” he says, holding her gaze. Her heart hammers against her ribcage. “I’ll take it.”

.

Martha thinks he’s gone for thirty seconds. Martha thinks he’s gone for thirty minutes, maybe thirty years, even. In the room, the doctor talks to her, thinks her nerves are about the baby, starts moving the probe along her stomach. It’s a horrible thought but right now, whatever she’s saying really isn’t Martha’s top priority. If Sean is taken back down into custody and she’s not there, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive herself.

Martha’s staring at the wall in front of her when she hears the door open again, close behind Clive. Her face immediately turns to his, hold his gaze.

It’s probably the longest second of her life. The one before which he nods, once, slipping her phone into the pocket of his jeans. Martha’s in free-fall, waiting to pull the strap.

“You won,” Clive mouths, smiles.

The parachute opens, like it always does.

.

Looking back, she doesn’t think it sunk in, then. She remembers a million questions on her lips and not being able to ask them because the doctor kept talking, unaware, and she had to try and concentrate when frankly nothing made sense to her, anymore. She looked at Clive, she remembers, and saw him nod, again, when she mouthed not guilty? with a frown on her face, just to be sure, like she must have gotten it wrong, understood him wrong, the first time around.

He smiled, nodded again, was about to repeat it when –

“Look,” he said, instead, pointing behind her.

And that’s how she finds herself here, now, staring at the screen as the sound of their baby’s heartbeat fills the room, regular and quick, and Clive has a smile up to his ears. The baby’s a girl, per the test results they heard earlier, and from what they can see, and everything that they can test at this stage, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. She’s got arms and legs, and a face that Martha swears has something of her mum’s.

She shakes her head in disbelief. “What do you mean she’s fine?”

The doctor smiles, slightly amused.

“She’s fine, Marth,” Clive repeats, catching her gaze like he did when he said not guilty.

She feels his hand holding hers when tears start streaming down her face.

.

The intern in the room insists that she’s very far from being the first person to just break down in tears in the middle of the scan but still, when they walk out of the room and nod at the couple waiting outside, Martha feels a bit pathetic with her red cheeks and puffy eyes, her perfectly fine baby and perfectly fine client. She wouldn’t call them tears of joy, really, as much as tears of relief, the way the tension that had accumulated in her body over the last few months just lifted from her shoulders at once. Nick didn’t say much on the phone, she learns from Clive, as they walk down the corridor and back into the patio she raced through earlier, just that he’d call back to let her know what time they’d release Sean and that the opinions should come in later today or tomorrow.

In the garden of the patio, Martha sees flowers she didn’t see on the way in, notices the green of the tree in the middle and the stone benches around the square. Clive sits down on the one closest to them, grabs her wrist before she can walk past, catches her glance.

A part of her wants to pull away but for some reason, she doesn’t, just eyes the way out. His thumb is drawing circles at her pulse point; it’s oddly soothing. “I’ve got to –” She starts but he shakes his head, smiles up at her.

“Stay,” he asks, his grasp loosening on her wrist. “Ten minutes. Just you and me.”

.

It’s warm, outside – sunny - Martha feels the sun between the shade of the leaves of the tree. Her thigh touches the side of Clive’s, eyes closed; she breathes. She tries to do it the way he does, calm and regular next to her, listens to the rustle of the leaves, strangely covering the sound of the sirens outside. It’s beautiful, here, peaceful; Martha smiles to herself, a hand on her stomach.

She expects Clive to talk but somehow, the minutes pass and he doesn’t, just sits there in silence next to her, watching the scene barely move. In school, she remembers, they read something about the relativity of time, about perceptions and illusions, and Martha wonders how that impacts this moment that he’s currently giving her. She doesn’t speak, hasn’t been this close to his body in what feels like decades. When she opens her eyes, he’s smiling at her.

“I can’t believe it’s a girl. I can’t believe you were right,” she chuckles, watching him. Clive laughs; she feels his chest moving next to her.

“I told you.”

His eyes are a bright shade of blue, here, lit by the sunlight.

Ten minutes come and go, and: “I’ve got to head off,” Martha hears herself say, her voice calm and quiet like it rarely is. “Nick –” she starts, sees Clive shrug, nod.

“Go on,” he says, his hand on the small of her back as she pushes herself up. “Go on and save the world.”

. 

Nick tells Martha not to come into Chambers, on the phone. Tells her to go home and sleep. She can’t do that, of course, so she walks around London all afternoon, eats three scoops of ice cream in lieu of lunch. The air is hot, in the city, but there’s more of a breeze at the park, it runs in her hair.

She waits for Sean in the shadow of a tree, watches the few people lucky enough not to be working on a Tuesday as they sunbathe on the grass.

(She went home to change, put on the sundress that she wore when Clive kissed her under the rain.)

Martha stands when she sees Sean, pulls him into a hug, her limbs wrapped around his. With her ear pressed to his chest, she hears his heart as it beats, regular and slow like the waves of the Irish Sea when they were sixteen, running barefoot on the sand of the beach in Blackpool. He used to smell like salt water and iodine; now, it’s just cigarettes and prison cells.

She breathes in, anyway. He feels real.

.

They talk shop, for a bit. What time he was released and how, the way it felt to have the cuffs come off his wrists. Sean is ecstatic, of course, but jumpy as hell, as Clive would say, from the way his foot won’t stop tapping the ground. Martha extends her bare legs on the grass, shoes off, nails red: the only part of her body not shaded by the tree. She wiggles her toes, her shoulder brushing against his; she pulls away, looks up at him.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there this morning,” she says.

He smiles, shakes his head and: “Doesn’t matter,” he says, in a way that makes her think that maybe it does. “Where were you?”

“Hospital.”

She pretends that the word slips past her lips but in truth, she chooses it. It’s true, sure, but it also sounds like a necessity. She doesn’t owe him anything, maybe, but it still feels like she does, like she had to have one hell of a reason not to show up to court on the day of the verdict.

Hospitals sound dramatic, imperative. 

Sean turns quick, hand against her arm, worry obvious in his eyes. “Shit, are you –”

“I’m fine,” Martha nods, quiet. His hair is a bit longer than it was before, she notices, a short salt and pepper beard framing his face; she catches herself remembering why he caught her gaze in the first place, all those years ago. He looked a bit gruff back then, too, a bit dangerous.

She used to think she liked that.

There’s a duffle bag laying on the grass, next to him. He put it on the floor when they sat down, dark blue with a white zipper on top. Martha knows what’s in there: his wallet, phone, belt – the stuff he was arrested with - a change of clothes, a toothbrush, maybe. It’s a prison bag; she’s seen a lot of them before.

“So,” she starts. Sean’s eyes are closed as she speaks; he looks tired, like someone re-discovering sounds that haven’t been heard in a while. It’s the one thing that Martha doesn’t know about the criminal justice system. When she goes to jail, she always gets out, a few hours later. She doesn’t know the grimness of the nights, the dullness of the days, the monotony of the food, the persistent lack of sunlight on your skin. Sean listens to the children’s laughter next to them as they play ball with their grandfather, to the wind, the sound of her own voice when she’s not angry or on the verge of crying. “Back to Manchester?” Martha asks, looking at him.

He laughs, opens his eyes, arching an eyebrow at her. “Fuck, no,” he breathes. “Believe it or not, I don’t actually have much of a death wish,” he adds and weirdly, Martha catches herself laughing, too, shaking her head at him.

There’s a girl, a few metres down, with pink hair and light eyes; she’s reading a book, turning page after page like the sirens and the people around her don’t exist. The cover is white with blue and gold lettering; it looks oddly poetic.

“On that note,” Sean adds and fishes inside the bag, pulls out a long, white envelope, unsealed. “I’ve got something for you.”

Their fingers brush when Martha takes the piece of paper in her hand, cracks a joke. “Is that a cheque?” she asks, turning the envelope over as she speaks. “’Cause Charlotte has me billing at five hundred quid an hour so I’m pretty sure you can’t afford me.”

Sean laughs, then, shakes his head and calls her out on being the rich, posh girl that she’s never been. “Nah, open it,” he says, finally, and watches Martha as she does.

There are three plane tickets in there. The old-fashioned ones that you get from the airport, with the scanning strip at the back and the little detachable stub on the side. The first one leaves from Heathrow to New York at 19:30 tonight. The second one from JFK to Miami tomorrow morning and lastly, from Miami to Belize. They’re all in her name, seat 04A – window, she guesses - then again 03A, and 21C.

“I booked first class when I could,” he says. “‘Cause I thought: ‘what the hell?’”

Martha holds the tickets between her fingers, is quiet for a moment. “Belize?” she observes, shaped like a question. She’s not sure she could place that on a map.

“Yup,” Sean nods, catching her gaze. “That’s where I’m going, too, in case you’re wondering. I’ve Googled it,” he smiles. “They speak English, have beaches and sunsets and, from what I’ve read, very little tax.”

Martha laughs, again, shakes her head in disbelief, amusement visible in her eyes. It ends with a sigh when she sees him shift, bite his lip.

“Come with me,” he says, simple, like she knew he would. 

He smiles at her when she looks away, lets the word roll off her tongue. She doesn’t think about it, doesn’t need to think about it. “No,” she just says.

She doesn’t say: ‘I can’t.’ She doesn’t talk about her career, her mum, her flat. She says: ‘No,’ not because she can’t, but because that’s her honest answer, the one that she wants to give him. She doesn’t want to come. She thinks he knows that, deep down, understands that, from the way he looks at her, trying to hide a wince. “Now, Martha Costello,” he tells her, sad. “You’re breaking my grown-up heart.”