Maud left the station earlier than usual, with the sense of not enough done. As she stepped onto the pavement, a young woman rushed past her into the wind and rain. She wasn’t wearing a coat, just a thin jumper. Her hair was unbrushed, her eyes were glittering, she seemed to be talking to herself.
‘Are you all right?’ Maud asked, but the woman didn’t stop or look round.
It took Maud ten minutes to get to the underground, walking through the drizzle, all the light of the shops and flats blurred by rain, people scurrying along the streets with heads bowed, clutching bags.
It was a few stops on the underground and then a ten-minute walk until she arrived at the vast college building, with its turrets and towers. The dozens of windows glowed in the evening darkness. As she entered through the large swing doors, the building felt almost empty. During the day, it was crammed with students. In the evening it was almost abandoned, with just a few sparse groups of mainly middle-aged people making their way up the stairs and along the echoing corridors to their classes in Spanish or creative writing or, in Maud’s case, law. Her colleagues would now be still at work or in the pub or back with their families. Maud was going back to school.
When she pushed open the door of lecture room C301, she saw the familiar faces seated in groups on the raked seating. They were a strange collection of different ages, ethnicities, genders. There was a man who looked as if he was in his sixties. Hadn’t he left it a bit late to train as a lawyer? There was a woman in a hijab. There was a woman who looked like a teenager. Her hair was dyed blue, and she had piercings in her ears, nose and lower lip and two full sleeves of tattoos. Maud didn’t know their individual stories and motivations and she didn’t really have time to know. All they really had in common was that, for one reason or another, they had to study law in the evenings. Maybe they had full-time jobs, like Maud. Maybe they had families. Maybe they had done a language and a drawing course and wanted to try something new.
Maud had her usual seat in the front row. It was always available. Probably people felt too exposed, too likely to be called on to say something. But it was the closest to the door. That was useful. She had already noticed that this adult evening class was turning into something that reminded her of being back at school. This collection of strangers was gradually turning into groups. People had their special places where they sat together and whispered to each other. At the end of the lesson, some of them would go to the pub across the road. Probably that was why some of them were taking the class in the first place. It wasn’t so much that they were going to go through the hard, grim process of becoming a lawyer in two or three or four years’ time. They were mainly here as a way of meeting people. But Maud was here to learn and nothing else. When the class was over, she could leave the room without having to make conversation. She had calculated that these twice-a-week sessions and the work that went into them could just about fit into her life if she was absolutely ruthless about it. It wasn’t fun, but it was her escape route.
The instructor came into the room. She was a middle-aged woman, who dressed in bright colours and flamboyant scarves. She looked like nobody’s idea of a legal academic and at some other time, in some other life, like someone who could be a friend. But Maud didn’t have time for another friend just now. She was finding it hard to keep up with the ones she did have. There was a bustle behind her as someone pushed through the door as the instructor was closing it and almost collided with her. The man apologised, then looked around and headed for the nearest seat, which was where Maud was sitting, so she had to move along.
She had seen him before. He was bearded, with messy brown hair, and was dressed in a dark suit, a blue tee-shirt and scuffed trainers. He looked not just as if he had left work in a hurry but as if he had got out of bed in a hurry. He rifled through his tote bag and produced a ring-backed notebook and a couple of pens, one without a top, and placed them on the desk in front of him.
‘What’s this one?’ he said.
‘What?’ said Maud.
‘What’s today about?’
‘Tort,’ said Maud. ‘An introduction to it.’
‘Tort?’ the man said doubtfully. ‘I’ve no idea what that is.’
‘Maybe that’s why we’re doing a class on it.’
That came out more sharply than Maud had intended, but the man just laughed.
‘That’s good,’ he said.
Halfway through the class, Caroline, the instructor, looked at her phone and said she had to deal with something and that it would only take a minute. She stepped outside and Maud could see her through the little round window in the door talking animatedly, something about keys. Conversations started behind her. Nancy looked down at her notes.
‘Now I know what tort is.’
It was the man next to her. She just gave a nod of acknowledgement.
‘And it’s definitely not the sort of thing I went into the law to learn.’
‘What did you go into the law to learn?’ she asked.
‘It probably sounds a bit childish. I’ve got sick of what I was doing and thought I could do something a bit more useful. You know, be like Atticus Finch.’
‘Didn’t Atticus Finch’s client get convicted?’
The man looked disconcerted. ‘Is that right? I haven’t read it since I was at school.’
‘I don’t think it was his fault, though.’
‘I’m Stuart, by the way.’
‘Maud.’
Stuart contemplated her with narrowed eyes.
‘I’ve been trying to make you out. I think I know why most of the other people are here. Mainly it’s because they messed up the first time and they’re giving it a second chance. Old Jim at the back is doing it because he wanted to do something to keep himself occupied after his wife died. A few others like me weren’t happy with their job. Actually, that’s not quite true about me. I’m reasonably happy. I just don’t seem…’
He couldn’t think of the right word.
‘Righteous,’ Maud suggested.
‘That’s a big word,’ said Stuart. ‘Too big, probably. But it’s something like that. But what about you?’
Before Maud could answer, the door opened and Caroline came back in and immediately started speaking. It was a dense, complicated lesson and Maud was frantically writing notes about laws of obligation and civil law and notions of rights and negligence and compensation. About the distinction between a strict tort and a specific one. They sounded like they should be the same thing, but they were different. The introductory classes on criminal law had dealt with issues that she faced every day, and she barely took a note. But this felt like learning a foreign language and by the time the class was ending, and Caroline was setting them homework, her head was reeling. She closed her notebook and put her pen in her pocket.
‘Teacher,’ said Stuart.
‘What?’ said Maud.
‘As I said, I’ve been trying to make you out. You’re a teacher, aren’t you?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Teacher adjacent, then.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean by that, but I think the answer is probably no.’
‘Social worker?’
‘No.’
He pondered this.
‘You’re not a doctor, are you?’
‘You’re right. I’m not a doctor.’
‘Oh, I know,’ he said. ‘You’re unemployed. Temporarily, I’m sure.’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said.
She got up, ready to leave. Stuart was frowning.
‘I’m normally good at this. All right, I give up. What are you?’
‘I’m a Metropolitan Police Detective,’ she said.
She’d read in books about the colour draining from a character’s face but she’d never actually seen it in real life, even when interviewing a suspect, even when charging them. But she saw it now. Stuart’s face went pale and when he spoke it was almost with a stammer.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
Maud didn’t know what to say either, so she picked up her notebook and headed for the door, passing the groups from the class who were heading for the pub.