Case Histories

Theo and David Holroyd had set up in partnership not long after Theo's marriage to Valerie. Jean Stanton joined them a couple years later. All three of them had been at university together and they wanted a "go-ahead, socially responsible" law practice, the kind that did more than its fair share of domestic and matrimonial and legal-aid work. Their good intentions had weakened over the years. Jean Stanton had discovered she liked litigation more than domestic violence and that her politics had changed from center left to Conservative with a large "C," and David Holroyd found that, as a fifth-generation East Anglian lawyer, conveyancing was his lifeblood, and so it usually fell to Theo to "keep up the ethical end of it," as David Holroyd put it. The practice had grown substantially, there were three junior partners now and two associates and they were bursting at the seams in the Parkside office, but none of them could bear the idea of moving.

The building had been a dwelling-house originally, five floors in all, from damp kitchen cellar to servants' cold attics, the rooms piled together rather haphazardly but nonetheless a decent residence for a well-to-do family. After the war it had been broken up into businesses and flats and now only fragmented and ghostly traces of the interior remained – a decorative plasterwork border of swags and urns above the desk where Cheryl worked and the egg-and-dart frieze beneath the cornice in the hall.

The drawing room, oval ended and neoclassic in its restraint, with a view of Parker's Piece from the windows, was now the boardroom for Holroyd, Wyre, and Stanton, and in winter there was always a real coal fire burning in the grate of the marble fireplace because David Holroyd was an old-fashioned sort. Theo had stood in the boardroom many times, sharing a glass of wine with his partners and associates, all of them full of the provincial bonhomie of successful professionals. And, of course, Jennifer and Laura had been in and out of that place all the time, ever since they were little, but it was still odd to think of her in there today, filing and fetching and carrying, and he knew how polite and willing she would be and felt proud because everyone in the office would be saying to one another, "Laura's a lovely girl, isn't she?" the way that people always did.

Sheep on the line. The ticket inspector did not elucidate whether it was a flock or a few stragglers. Enough of them anyway for everyone on the train to Cambridge to feel the bump and judder. The train had been stopped for ten minutes before the conductor made his way through the four carriages and informed them about the sheep, quashing speculation about cows, horses, and suicidal humans. After half an hour the train was still stationary, so Theo supposed it must be a flock rather than some solitary stray. He wanted to get back to Cambridge and take Laura out for lunch but it was "in the lap of the gods," as the conductor put it. Theo wondered why it was the lap of the gods and not the hands of the gods. It was stifling in the train, and someone, the guard presumably, opened the doors and people began to clamber out. Theo was sure it was against railway bylaws, but there was a narrow verge and an embankment at the side of the train so it seemed quite safe, there was no way another train could plow into them in the way that theirs had into the sheep. Theo alighted cautiously, and with difficulty, pleased with himself for being so adventurous. He was curious to see what sheep looked like after a close encounter with a train. Walking along the track, he soon discovered the answer to his question – bits of sheep, like joints of meat with wool attached, had been flung about everywhere, as if they'd been torn apart in a bloody massacre by a pack of wolves. Theo was surprised how strong his stomach was for this carnage, but then he had always regarded lawyers as being rather like policemen and nurses in their ability to rise above the mess and tragedy of everyday life and deal with it in a disinterested way. Theo had a strange sense of triumph. He had traveled on a train that had almost been derailed but no harm had come. The odds surely dictated that his chances (and therefore the chances of those close to him) of being in another train accident had lessened.

The driver was standing next to his engine, looking baffled, and Theo asked him if he was "okay," and he said, by way of answer, "I saw just the one and I thought, Well, I probably don't need to brake for that, and then" – he made a dramatic gesture with his arms as if trying to reenact a flock of disintegrating sheep – "and then the world went white."