Free Law and Peace by Tim Kevan Page B

to sleep through the night from week one.’
    There were a few sceptical looks from some of the more senior members of chambers but by this point HeadClerk was asking the most important question of all, ‘Er, so when exactly was she born?’
    He singularly failed at trying to sound nonchalant and after she gave him the answer and left the room a number of people began flicking through their diaries. They all knew that FanciesHimself, the junior clerk, is one of the two possible fathers, along with OldSmoothie, but early conclusions seem to be that it was too early for FanciesHimself to have been responsible. This squarely puts OldSmoothie in the frame and adds more weight to the theory that BusyBody is only being allowed back into chambers on the basis that she keeps quiet about the identity of the father.
    All of this perhaps also explains why OldSmoothie made a point of being seen in chambers today, all ‘business as usual’. Except it wasn’t business as usual because everyone knows that Friday is his golf day. Everyone, that is, except his wife who apparently believes that it remains one of his regular court days.
    As for chambers tea itself, aside from the cooing from the ladies and the polite grunts from some of the male members of chambers, OldSmoothie was lamenting times gone by. ‘No one just emerges any longer.’
    â€˜What do you mean emerges?’ I asked.
    â€˜Emerges. Just what it says. Appears in place. Emerges from nowhere to take the role.’
    â€˜And I’m imagining that you would be referring to the role of high court judge?’ asked TheVamp.
    â€˜Not just them. Prime Ministers used to just emerge. Ambassadors, heads of the civil service. They’d all just emerge. But yes, since you’re asking, high court judges too. It’s ridiculous having an application process for such a complicated and sensitive role.’
    â€˜Yes, I hear you weren’t even shortlisted following your own application, OldSmoothie. Great loss to the judicial system, I’m sure.’ This sideswipe came from UpTights.
    â€˜Coming from someone who can’t even judge our little games of Battleships without exploding, I hardly think you’re one to talk.’
    OldSmoothie was referring to the particular cases that he likes to settle with an insurer over a game of Battleships. But he wasn’t to be diverted from his little reverie. ‘But all I’m really saying is that it’s a crying shame. No more old-fashioned consultations. Quiet words over a G and T. Now it’s all just form-filling and quotas.’
    â€˜Well,’ said UpTights, ‘any time you want to emerge as Ambassador for Outer Mongolia, you just tell me OldSmoothie and I’ll get right on to the Prime Minister myself and make absolutely sure it happens.’
    â€˜I’d support your emergence into any place but this one to be honest, OldSmoothie,’ added BusyBody looking him straight in the eye.
    The tag team were reunited.
    â€˜Yes,’ said UpTights, ‘a campaign for the emergence of OldSmoothie. Maybe a few articles in the press, a petition on the Number Ten website and of course the obligatory Facebook group.’
    BusyBody smiled and said, ‘I think you may just be on to something there.’
    Really, I dread to think where it may now lead, what with BusyBody’s rather terrifying post-birth energy and UpTights’s manic moments. But the other thing that occurs to me is to question why exactly BusyBody is still being so horrible to OldSmoothie when he might be the father of her child? Maybe she just can’t help herself in the face of such pomposity. Or maybe it’s because he’s told her that he’ll have nothing to do with the baby.
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    Monday 24 December 2007
    Year 2 (week 13): Ringers
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    Got a call this morning from ScandalMonger.
    â€˜Sorry to be disturbing you on Christmas Eve but I’ve just had a terrible