Page 7 of Annabel and Her Sisters

David and I had met in court, as a matter of fact.

I’d been riding pillion on my boyfriend’s motorbike and we’d had an accident, collided with a car.

Luckily neither Will nor I had been badly hurt, but the car was dented and the driver maintained it was Will’s fault, that we’d cut him up on Hyde Park Corner– no traffic lights in those days, very much a free-for-all and quite fun, actually, until you found yourself under Wellington Arch in a crash helmet seeing stars.

Luckily the police didn’t come, but we’d ended up in court facing an insurance claim.

Will had given evidence to the effect that the car had been oblivious to us, the driver had failed to look in his mirror, and now it was my turn. I took to the witness stand, my heart fluttering, but I was determined not to be wet. A young barrister stood before me, good-looking even in a wig.

‘Could you state your full name, please?’

‘Annabel Edwina Fanshawe,’ I said, rather shrilly. I saw his lips twitch. I sounded like the Queen Mother.

‘Would you like to tell the court what you remember from the accident?’

I did, as much as I could recall, which was pretty much a huge jolt, the sound of crushing metal, then white sky, as I sailed upwards through the air, then landed with a bump on the tarmac, thankfully on the island and not the road.

‘So you didn’t witness the impact or see the car at all.’

‘No, just Will’s back.’

‘So you don’t actually know who was at fault?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

I could feel Will’s eyes on me but it was true, that was all I remembered.

‘Thank you, Miss Fanshawe.’

Afterwards, in the corridor, Will was cross. ‘Why didn’t you stick up for me?’

‘Because I had to tell the truth. They gave me a Bible, Will.’

‘I’ve lost my no claims, you realize that.’

‘You’ve lost more than that.’ I met his eye.

This had been coming for months. Five years we’d been going out, but he treated me increasingly casually, was complacent about our relationship.

Devastatingly good-looking and amusing as he was, I knew he should have been kinder to me.

I was still trembling a bit from the witness box.

‘Sorry, babe, I shouldn’t have said that.

Of course you had to tell the truth.’ He wrapped his arms around me.

And suddenly it was OK again. It always was with Will.

He didn’t mean it, he loved me very much, it was just that his mouth went into action before his brain sometimes.

We went for a drink at Daly’s in Fleet Street.

My father came to join us, he’d just finished in court nearby, but somehow, having voiced the unthinkable, it was out there.

Adrift. I was twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine.

He had to be the one. My friends were beginning to get married.

What was wrong with me? Everyone said things in the heat of the moment.

And all my friends liked him, my sisters too.

I calmed down and drank my spritzer. But on my way to the loo, I bumped into the young barrister again.

He smiled. ‘You OK? It’s a bit of an ordeal, isn’t it?’

I smiled back. ‘I’m fine. But thank you. And it was hardly a cross-examination.’

‘Is that what you were expecting?’ He looked surprised.

‘My father’s a lawyer, so he told me you might grill me a bit.’ I glanced across to where Dad was chatting to Will over a beer. The barrister did a double take.

‘Murray Fanshawe’s your father? I mean a lawyer, sure, but one of the youngest ever high court judges in the judiciary would be more correct.’

I laughed. ‘He’d love to be described as young. He’s fifty-two, you know.’

‘I meant when he was made a judge. Forty-eight, I think.’

‘Oh yes, he was.’ Mum had been so proud.

He looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Sounds like I’ve stalked him, but he’s a bit of a legend at the Bar.’

‘That’s OK, no one minds their father being called a legend.’

We both looked at each other properly. And then we had a moment. I saw that his eyes were hazel, flecked with green, and kind. We quickly looked away, embarrassed.

‘Anyway, nice to have met you,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I must get on.’

‘Yes– me too,’ I said moving past him and going into the Ladies.

When I came out of the cubicle I washed my hands and glanced in the mirror.

My cheeks were still flushed. I smiled at my reflection.

Nice man. Bit older than me, but nice man.

That was all. I took a deep breath and went back to join Will and my father, who were just draining their pints.

‘Coming, love?’ asked my father. He always called me love. He was from Hull, where everyone did. Or pet.

‘Um, yes, I will actually.’

He didn’t mean the family home, because Will and I had just started sharing a flat; he meant generally, but I made an excuse.

‘I’ve left my best trousers there,’ I explained to Will. ‘And so many other things. I need to make a quick dart back.’

‘Oh good.’ My dad perked up. ‘Your mother will be pleased. Supper and the night?’

‘Absolutely.’

So Will and I hugged and we left, leaving him in better heart after his beer and a chat with Dad.

On the bus home to Primrose Hill I was thoughtful. My father was reading a brief beside me.

‘Do you know that barrister?’ I asked. My father glanced up, then around the bus. ‘Which one?’

‘No, not here. The one I had against me in court.’ I rifled in my bag for my papers. Brought them out. ‘Martin Bannister.’

‘That was Will’s barrister,’ my father explained, taking the papers from me. ‘The one for the insurers was called David Appleton, and no, only by repute.’

‘Which is?’

‘Good. Very bright. Very nice too, apparently. He’s in Giovanni’s chambers.’

‘Oh…’ My eyes widened. Giovanni Marricone was my godfather. A QC.

We were silent on the bus. I rested my head on the window. Dad read on. At length he spoke.

‘There was alcohol on Will’s breath when you came back to our house after the accident,’ he said quietly. ‘I smelled it.’

‘I know,’ I replied softly.

I ended up having Sunday lunch the following weekend at Giovanni’s house in Wilton Crescent, on some weird, spurious pretext about going through my clothes at home and wanting to return a coat their daughter, MT, had lent me aeons ago.

‘It’s not mine!’ she squealed when she opened the front door and saw it. ‘Honestly, you are hilarious, Annie. I didn’t think it was mine when you rang. I couldn’t remember lending you one– oh Dad, Annabel’s here!’

I blushed scarlet, aware of my mission.

‘Annabel!’ Giovanni was a tall, towering man who enveloped me in a hug and lifted me off the floor, as always. I laughed, which helped my guilty demeanour. ‘Susan sends her love but she’s at some flower arranging course today so I’m in charge– don’t expect haute cuisine.’

‘I think it’s Fatima’s, actually.’ MT was still peering at the suede jacket.

‘Oh, is it?’ I said incredulously, knowing full well it was. The three of us had been at Queen’s Secretarial College together when we couldn’t think what to do after university, and clothes had often changed hands. ‘I’ll pop it over to her, thanks.’

‘How’s tricks?’ Giovanni asked me, leading the way down the steps to the basement kitchen. ‘Still working for Mr Delightful? Marie-Thérèse, get Annabel a drink.’

I rolled my eyes enthusiastically. ‘Still delightful,’ I agreed.

I’d failed the Pitman’s course disastrously, unlike MT and Fatima, but my lovely boss in my ad agency– after I’d finally admitted to him my shorthand was non-existent– went so slowly I could write it in longhand.

He said I had other skills, which I didn’t.

‘Excellent. But I hear you’ve been in court? Thrown from some motorbike?’ He turned from peeling potatoes at the sink: looked concerned. Bullseye.

‘Yes, with another Mr Delightful.’ I perched on a stool at the island. ‘Honestly, he was supposed to cross-examine me but he gave me such an easy ride. I think he’s in your chambers, actually. David Appleton?’

‘David? Oh, he’s very hot stuff, will go right to the top. Clearly fell for your charms if he didn’t give you the once-over. I’ll tell him to get a grip.’ He grinned and went back to the spuds. ‘Give him a clip round the ear.’

In those days there was no Facebook, no mobiles, no texts: just subterfuge. It worked.

A week or so later my mother called me at work. ‘Someone called David Appleton rang for you, darling. Left a number?’ She gave it to me.

‘Thanks,’ I whispered, and sailed off to take a tray of coffee into Mr Delightful’s meeting, my heart soaring.

I rang him back a few days later. He wondered if we could meet for lunch. He said he knew I had a boyfriend and if it was a bad idea to please say so, but that he hadn’t stopped thinking about me since we’d met.

It was said very quickly and nervously and I could tell he’d rehearsed it, but I loved the honesty: he could have pretended he thought Will was just a friend; the fact that we were going out hadn’t come out in court.

Plus, Will never said things like that to me, that he couldn’t stop thinking about me.

I thought it was part of his charm: the chase.

I found myself saying I’d love to. Lunch was safe, after all, and we arranged to meet in Daly’s again. I worked close by in Covent Garden.