Seb didn’t come in at all that week, but on Friday he sent me an email saying that he would do the three-day case that was in his diary for the following week, starting on Monday. I arranged for the papers to be taken to his home by taxi.
The next Monday passed without incident but then on Tuesday, things fell apart for him completely. He had left home early to come into the office before court to do paperwork. As a result, Freja had been left with the children. She had dropped Theo off at his nursery on time but then had gone back home with the baby Lucas. At about eleven o’clock, there was a frantic call from Freja, asking to speak to Seb urgently. The switchboard put the call through to Jane. Freja was crying and saying that she couldn’t cope.
There was no way that Seb could be pulled out of court in the middle of a case and so Jane rang me to ask what she should do. I was in the middle of a meeting with another rich divorce client so left her to the tender mercies of the barrister to speak to Freja on the phone. I had met Freja quite a few times by then, but did not know her anything like as well as I do now.
‘I need Seb here, Jon. I really need him to come home right now.’ She was sniffing and crying down the phone.
‘Why, what’s happening?’ She sounded right off the scale.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it. It’s just… I’m frightened…’ and then she started crying again and speaking in Danish.
‘Freja, where are you? Tell me where you are and I will come and find you.’
‘I need Seb, Jon. I really need him here to look after the boys. It’s not fair on them.’
‘Freja, we can’t get in touch with him now. He’s in court. I’ll come and be with you until he’s free. Where are you?’
Eventually, she told me that she was at home with Lucas and that Theo did not need to be picked up until 3 p.m. I had to go back to tell the client and the barrister that I had been called away as a result of an emergency, knowing all too well that there would be inevitable complaints that would follow from the client and the usual battle with Boadicea.
‘Hi, Susan. I’ve got a bit of a problem here.’ I had rung the surgery from the car and asked them to give her a message. She was ringing me back.
‘I’ll see if I can get one of the other doctors to cover some of my appointments. Ring you back.’ Ten minutes later she rang back and said that she would drive to Freja’s home by 2 p.m.
So, that’s how Seb’s life went pear-shaped. Susan arrived bang on time. She wrote a prescription for Freja to have some Valium and spoke to her with all the gentleness that Susan has; kindly, in her soft voice, holding Freja’s hand. I hovered around, trying to make myself useful, but not achieving anything other than keeping Lucas, and later Theo, entertained. We stayed with them that afternoon until Seb got home. Seb then finished off the case the following day with his mother coming over to help Freja with the children, but there was no way that he could continue to work while all that was going on. Once again, Susan, my wonderful wife, sorted everything out.
‘Seb needs to get himself signed off. I’ll speak to his GP if he likes.’ And she did just that.
So, in the end, Seb was signed off for stress and that, in turn, led to real financial problems for him. His rights to sickness pay under his contract were limited to a month on full pay, and then to another month on half pay. State sickness benefit was about £85 a week at the time. Anyway, after a few weeks, his doctor felt unable to sign him off for stress any longer as there was nothing actually wrong with Seb – he just didn’t feel able to leave Freja alone with the kids.
‘Sickness benefit is not ‘I’ve got trouble at home benefit,’ his doctor eventually told him, apparently.
So Seb resigned and, of course, with resignation he lost any entitlement to other benefits for nine weeks. How was he supposed to pay for the house and everything else?
‘We need to help them. We earn enough.’ How many wives would take that line about a husband’s work colleague? But Susan took it.
‘Between us we earn over £275,000 a year. We can’t just stand back and watch Seb and Freja lose the roof over their heads.’
I spoke to the mortgage company on Seb’s behalf and agreed a reduced mortgage payment for six months. Beyond that, Susan and I paid two of their credit card bills and gave them £6,000 – the most capital they could have without their benefits being affected. We also kept them afloat for the first nine weeks. It took a lot of persuading for Seb to accept it all but, in the end, we called it a loan. It made no difference to us.
As I expected, Clarissa was horrid about the whole issue. I could almost feel the ripple of delight when she heard of his resignation. It was just what she needed to help with her plan to stop legal aid.
‘Should we not at least pay him something to help him on his way?’ I needn’t have bothered even asking.
‘I’ll speak to the other partners.’
And I’m sure she did, and I am equally sure that they also saw that this was an opportunity to give legal aid work a hard kick in the bollocks. What hope that the death-scavengers from probate or the commercial guys who got their rocks off on money would ever agree to help someone financially? The answer to my question came back very soon later – ‘No.’ What’s more, she even asked me to explain to her in writing why I had gone off to see Freja that afternoon.
‘Why do you fucking think?’ is what I wrote in the first draft of my email, but Jane told me not to send it. ‘Because she was very unwell. Please come and speak to me in my office if you wish to discuss this further,’ was my eventual reply.
So, bang went Seb’s job. Susan and I sorted out some therapy for him and for Freja, and it was so good to watch them both gain in confidence as the therapy took hold. It was touch and go for Freja for a while but, by the end of six months she pulled through and got herself off the pills. It was a long and hard graft for them both, but that is not my story to tell.
Best story from Seb’s therapy?
‘Tell me,’ his therapist apparently asked him once, ‘what happens if you don’t express your anger?’
‘You murder your fucking therapist,’ Seb replied – or so he told me. But see? He really did learn. I think I taught him well.
What did matter to Susan and me, though, was the way that Seb, Freja and the two boys became part of our family. Our kids worship Seb. He knows just how to be with them, how to mess around in play, but also help them with things. And Freja is a soft, kind, beautiful woman whose gentleness would bring tears to my eyes at times as she spoke of her love for her two very good-looking boys and for her very handsome husband. She is also a brilliant artist and used painting as part of her therapy – she is now a very successful painter. And what goes around, comes around, as this story shows.