Jean has more acquaintances on file than shares in her ISAs. But with close friends she’s always gone for quality over quantity – Naomi, Cora, and Imogen had been enough to fill her heart. Until this unquantifiable thing with Ava, tilting from fuck buddies (Jean still despises that term) to friends that also fuck. Actual friends, with trust and gentleness and laughter. Peter’s really the only man in her life now, and even that’s partly down to him being the only one who knows where the bodies are buried, having picked up a shovel and helped her dig each grave.
‘Yes.’
Ava nods, tone casual as if she’s asking Jean about the weather. ‘And have you ever had particularly intense friendships with women?’
She’s thought of Marianne less since that first fateful meeting with Ava. But she’s never far away, too much a part of Jean to ever be truly exiled. Both scholarship girls, both ambitious women determined to make it in a man’s world, they’d shared an instinctive understanding. Though Jean had been thrilled about being taken on as a junior associate, the thought of working united with Mari towards a shared goal had invigorated her at least as much as its accomplishment.
And Jean had cherished the little moments. The easy intimacy of sharing a cigarette – Bridget’s dire warnings of cancer had been enough to put Jean off ever becoming a serious smoker, yet she’d been unable to resist putting her lips to the ghost of Mari’s lipstick. Those nights when they’d stayed up until the small hours plotting, drunk on cheap Merlot and their own glittering potential. Those glorious seven months when they’d shared a poky one-bedroom flat, trading the bed and the sofa every other week. Jean had always put off changing the sheets, blaming work for her slovenly habits, when really – a truth glimpsed only from the corner of her eye – she’d savoured breathing in Mari’s melon shampoo while drifting off to sleep.
Ava’s out for the count now – her patient silence has shifted into slow, even breaths, a little sigh on every exhale. Yet even after Ava’s face slackens, she holds on tight to Jean. Pillowed in the hollow between her breasts, Jean hears every beat of Ava’s heart pulsing against her cheek. Through the membrane of skin, she whispers her confession to that tireless muscle: ‘Yes.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Over breakfast – the edible Twix arrangement for Ava, and poached egg on toast for Jean – she chances an invitation to the Women in Law luncheon. It’s an excellent opportunity for Ava to network before her launch, but – knowing Ava is unlikely to accept on those terms – Jean sells her presence as a friendly non-DDH face to help ease Rhona back in. Even shielded by the cloak of a fresh NDA, Rhona is anxious about returning to the legal world.
When the day comes, Ava is good as her word – warm enough to set Rhona at her ease, but formal enough that the junior associate never clocks the dynamic between them as a point of interest. They register together, picking up purple tote bags loaded with Moleskine notebooks, artisan soap, aromatherapy candles. Ava swaps with Rhona to give her the vegan dark chocolate, instantly winning a friend.
Then it’s time to split up, Jean gravitating towards a session on women in leadership. The blurb describes nothing Jean hasn’t already digested via assorted books, courses, and podcasts. But Elizabeth Granger waves Jean over and they sit together in the corner of the back row, Elizabeth’s head bent towards Jean’s ear as she enquires about upcoming vacancies in upper management at DDH; whether they intend to recruit internally, or from further afield. And though Jean’s non-committal in her response, a bland reminder that keeping a CV up to date never hurts, they both leave the session satisfied. Elizabeth wouldn’t be unpleasant to work with; she knows when to push and when to step back into the shadows. An essential quality in a deputy, and one found far more readily in middle-aged women than their male counterparts.
Lunch is held in an exquisite old music hall, chandeliers bathing the room in light the colour of champagne. Pillars lining the back wall hold up the circular balcony above, should the space be used as a theatre or lecture hall. The dancefloor is covered in fleur-de-lis carpeting, muffling the growing chorus of voices.
Two dozen circular tables are spread evenly around the hall. Ava and Rhona are deep in conversation in their allotted seats at table eight, right in the heart of the action, with a space in the middle Jean takes to be hers. They don’t notice her approach, Rhona laughing until she’s pink-cheeked and breathless. Jean lingers to watch them, lifting a flute of prosecco from a passing waiter’s tray. ‘I’ll swap places with one of you, if you want to continue.’
‘Oh no, Ms Howard. That really isn’t necessary. Ava was just telling me about her mother’s church.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah.’ Ava chuckles. ‘Her pastor had a harder time accepting me being a lawyer than a lesbian. Kept on quoting Isaiah:No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.’
The bubbles catch in Jean’s throat, and she coughs, waving off her companions’ concern through watering eyes. Whatever denomination of the church Mrs Harris belongs to, she doubts very much it’s Catholic – Father Fulton preached eternal damnation so often that Jean could practically smell the brimstone, and her own burning hair. She’d stopped going to Mass upon moving to Oxford, stopped believing long before, yet the portrait of hell that he’d painted remains vivid in Jean’s imagination even now.
‘He changed his tune when a member of the congregation tried to make an insurance claim against the church.’ Ava grins. ‘First and only time I’ve ever used the Act of God defence.’
Rhona dissolves into fits of giggles once more, and Jean musters a weak smile. Though the junior associate knows Ava’s sexuality, she doesn’t seem to guess about Jean’s own. All the same, this conversation needs careful management. ‘So, tell me. Have either of you met anyone interesting today?’
Rhona sobers a little, though as the hall fills, she chatters happily about her various encounters. An old chum from her all-girls’ school now working as a junior associate for Lawson and Pierce; a guest lecturer from her university days.
‘I caught up with someone too – an old colleague of sorts.’ Ava’s face lights up with a sudden epiphany. ‘Actually, Jean, she reminds me a little of you. The confidence, the immaculate wardrobe – she just radiates competence. Which makes sense, because she said you used to work together.’
Jean ignores the foie gras being set down before her. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Kate Brennan. She’s a prosecutor now, with Minerva.’ Ava thanks the waitress, lifting her cutlery. ‘I got to know her through AWCRC; she’s taken on some of our bigger cases. In court she’s absolutely terrifying – a total Valkyrie. But the rest of the time she’s fun.’
Jean frowns. Before menopause her memory never drew absolute blanks – but then having once sat in on the same meeting or course might easily have been embellished, reworked into a collegiate relationship. ‘The name doesn’t ring a bell – is she married?’
‘Yeah, to Liza Devlin from Women’s Justice League.’ Ava flashes Rhona a quick grin. ‘The women’s sector can be pretty incestuous.’
So, Brennan was always her surname. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells. Sorry.’
Ava frowns. ‘She was talking like she knew you really well.’
‘People can be like that with Ms Howard.’ Rhona raises her fork but does not eat, red pepper and chickpea pâté speared on its tines. ‘Maybe Kate thought you could get her access, so she played up the connection.’
‘Now, Rhona,’ Jean says. But inwardly she smiles, thinks:Rhona Baird, I will make a shark of you yet.A sweet, unthreatening exterior to hide the cunning, just like Imogen.
‘Oh shit.’ Ava’s brows knit together. ‘I didn’t even think of that. Kate said she was hoping to speak with you.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Jean allows herself a wry smile. ‘I’m sure I’ll cope.’
