Page 3 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Arthur himself was looking cheerful, as though the move had already given him a new lease on life. It was all right for some.

“Morning,” he said. “Got your kit? How’s the office?”

“Er, yeah, about that,” I said. “Is the room allocation definitely fixed? Or is there any scope for flexibility, do you think?”

Arthur’s smile dimmed. “Is there a problem?”

I hesitated.

I could try explaining that Charles Goh and I were bound together by an evil fate, from our first encounter at this very firm.

But Arthur would think I was nuts. He didn’t know what it was like to keep running into a hot lawyer employed by the firm that rejected you and have it be a disaster every single time.

It wouldn’t sound plausible. The City of London was actually pretty large.

There was no reason I should have seen anything more of Charles Goh after that ill-fated assessment centre.

We didn’t even do the same kind of law, apart from the fact that we were both litigators.

Yet Charles had kept turning up, over the years.

(“He’s your good friend,” said Zuri.

“He’s my bad luck charm,” I said. “He’s like the omen you see when something terrible is going to happen. Like flocks of birds flying backwards. Rains of frogs.”

“You won the case what,” said Zuri. “The one where he spilled his coffee on you at the big strategy meeting. Eh, and didn’t you win the other court application?

That time you were late to court and had to run there with the files on a trolley and he was sitting up there with the judge, watching you, when you went in and rolled the trolley over the client’s foot. ”

“That’s the claimant’s lawyer’s fault. If he didn’t leave his laptop cable trailing on the floor there, I wouldn’t have tripped over it, and the trolley wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the client.

” I rubbed my face. “That kind of thing only happens when Charles Goh is around. Like I said, my bad luck charm.”

“Your good friend,” Zuri intoned. Which was how she and all our mutual friends had started calling him Kawan Baik.)

I said to Arthur now:

“The office is right by the kitchenette. It gets pretty noisy, with the coffee machine and people chatting. I don’t suppose there are any other offices going free?”

“They’re tight on office space here,” said Arthur. “Firm policy is to move towards open plan. No fixed desks for anyone, since everyone’s doing hybrid working. The room you’re in was only available because the other guy comes in five days a week. He managed to negotiate for his own office.”

“Five days a week?” I said faintly.

I’d been thinking that if I couldn’t switch offices, I’d aim to come in on Kawan Baik’s “work from home” days. At least I could minimise exposure to him that way.

Typical of Charles Goh. It was like he purposely wanted to thwart me at every turn.

“It doesn’t look too busy out there,” said Arthur, peering out of his office. “You could use one of the empty pods if you need to focus? Or a meeting room?”

“Yeah,” I said, without enthusiasm. “I could do that.”

Arthur ran his hand over his hair, looking harassed. His air of good cheer had vanished.

I felt bad. I knew intellectually I wasn’t responsible for Arthur’s feelings, but my job was about making him—and by proxy, our clients—happy. The instinct was ingrained in me by now. Besides, there was no denying my life was easier when Arthur was in a good mood.

“I can’t promise anything,” he said, “but I’ll speak to Farah.”

Farah was the group managing partner. I’d only met her once—a British Asian woman with a cut-glass accent, silvering hair, and a mind like a steel trap. I didn’t want her to know me as the new joiner who was complaining about having to hear people talk in the office.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I wanted to know what the options were. But it doesn’t sound like it would be straightforward to relocate me.”

“No,” agreed Arthur. “Sorry. I can talk to Farah if you want, but I doubt she’ll be able to do anything… No? If you’re sure.” He settled back, looking relieved. “Anything else I can do for you?”

I shook my head, suppressing a sigh. It had always been a long shot. Arthur never really helped solve my problems. That wasn’t what our relationship was about. “I’ll let you get on with your day.”

“Wait,” said Arthur. “Since you’re here—you’ve met our PA, right? Victoria’s very nice, she sits in the pod down by the lifts. Can you talk to her about sorting our travel to Hong Kong for the conference?”

I stared. “What conference?”

“The one we’re speaking at,” said Arthur. “I’m going to ring the clients we were going to see, set up some meetings.”

I opened my mouth before closing it again.

We’d liaised closely with our old firm’s Hong Kong office when making our original arrangements to travel out there.

It was our Hong Kong colleagues who’d helped set up most of the planned meetings with clients.

I had been the one who’d had to email them to explain about us moving to Swithin Watkins and apologise for pulling out.

Arthur had been cc’d on the emails. He hadn’t said a word to indicate the trip was still on.

“I didn’t think we were going anymore,” I said. I’d planned to travel on from Hong Kong to Malaysia to visit my parents, but when I’d given notice at the old job, I’d postponed my flight to Malaysia and resigned myself to eating the associated charges.

“Yeah, I assumed we’d be calling it off. But when I mentioned our move to the chair of the conference, he said we could keep our speaking slots. They’ll update our bios. I think it’s a good idea. We need to get out there, let clients know where to find us.”

I took a deep breath. “Were you thinking of a similar agenda? Will we be delivering training for clients?”

Arthur nodded. “We’ve got to set out our stall. It’s an opportunity to show what we’ve got to offer. All the preparation’s been done, it’d be a shame not to use it.”

That was true. Except that the slides and speaking notes I’d spent weeks preparing had been left behind at our old firm.

“I don’t have access to the materials anymore,” I said hollowly. “If I’d known we were still going…”

Arthur had to be aware of the abyss that had opened in my soul, but he was dealing with this in a typically Arthur way, pretending he hadn’t noticed the shimmering waves of rage rolling off me.

“Those materials belong to brC anyway,” he said. “But we should be able to reconstruct the contents pretty easily, I would have thought. I’ll have a word with Farah about getting a trainee to help. We’ve got plenty of time. The conference is two weeks away. All right?”

He met my eyes, expectant.

It is not fucking all right, Arthur, what the fuck? Could you not have told me, oh I don’t know, any time within the past four weeks? Did you have to land this on me on my first day at a new firm?

I swallowed that answer down.

It wasn’t that bad, I told myself. Arthur was right: I should be able to re-create the slides from memory.

The next two weeks should be quiet. Some of our long-standing clients had indicated they’d follow Arthur over to Swithin Watkins, but with a couple of exceptions, we weren’t bringing over any active matters.

It wasn’t that there wasn’t enough time to prepare. It was the waste of all the preparation I’d done already that hurt.

At least I should get a trip to see my parents out of this. I’d have to see if I could book annual leave and reschedule the flight to Malaysia again.

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll make it work.”

“Great,” said Arthur, his eyes already drifting back to his inbox. “You’re a star.”