An Immoral Code by Caro Fraser

party – she hadn’t seen her since that evening in the Edgar Wallace. But there she was, looking unmistakeably lovely. Then suddenly Camilla recognised the man whom Sarah was kissing, and her heart contracted with pain. It must have started that evening, when she introduced Sarah to Anthony in the pub – they must have been seeing each other for three weeks. So like Sarah, thought Camilla, trying to look away and pay attention to what someone was saying to her. Any man she wanted, she got. It had been like that at Oxford. She slept with whomever she chose, and although Camilla had always been brought up to believe that that was the way you got a bad name for yourself, it never seemed to affect Sarah. She wasn’t seen as an easy lay, but as someone who knew what she wanted and just took it. Camilla wondered whether Sarah and Anthony slept together, and this prompted a painful image which she immediately tried to push from her mind.
    The music ended, and Sarah glanced innocently in Camilla’s direction. ‘Oh, look, there’s Camilla,’ she said brightly.
    ‘Really?’ asked Anthony, turning. Because she was Jeremy’s pupil, Anthony always thought of Camilla as a sort of schoolgirl, and he didn’t really expect to see her at parties. It was ridiculous, he realised, considering she was twenty-two. Seeing Anthony looking in her direction, Camilla lifted her chin and smiled. Anthony, with Sarah at his side, crossed the room to talk to her.
    ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you out of office hours.’
    Camilla could feel her face flushing, and wished that it was something she could prevent by exercise of sheer self-control. But she couldn’t.
    ‘Hi,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t expect – that is … I didn’t know you knew Lesley – I mean, you know, the girl whose party it is,’ said Camilla, wishing she could appear self-possessed and cool. She had so often fantasised about meeting Anthony by chance in some social situation like this, somewhere where she wouldn’t be wearing her fusty black suit from chambers, and could dazzle him with an as yet unseen image. And here it was happening, and she still felt awkward and naive, and Sarah stood smiling at his side.
    Anthony, a little surprised at the shyness of her manner, suddenly realised that she could have had no idea that he was seeing Sarah, and he felt a momentary awkward unhappiness. He had been unable to ignore the obvious fact that Camilla had something of a crush on him, and with mild conceit he acknowledged that it must be difficult for her to accept that he was going out with one of her friends. He was about to offer to fetch her a drink, when Sarah remarked, ‘That’s a pretty top. From Next, isn’t it? I’ve got one like it, but of course, you have the figure for it.’ The remark sounded entirely innocent, but Camilla felt instantly self-conscious, envious of Sarah’s fashionable, boyish figure.
    She could think of nothing to say, and so merely replied, ‘I’m just going to put this in the kitchen,’ holding up a bottle of wine which she had brought. She smiled uncertainly at them both and turned away.
    ‘Poor old Camilla,’ murmured Sarah. ‘You’ll always find her in the kitchen at parties.’
    ‘I don’t know why you say that,’ said Anthony. ‘She looks very nice – quite fanciable.’ And, indeed, he had been surprised at how pretty she looked. Very nice legs. He realised that he hadnever really thought of her as being female – pupils tended to be ciphers, and their place at the bottom of the pecking order in chambers prevented them from having properly developed personalities, so that one scarcely thought about them much at all. The tone of Sarah’s remark made him want to defend Camilla, because he liked her.
    Sarah laughed. ‘Am I supposed to feel jealous?’
    ‘You?’ said Anthony. He kissed her and realised he was still hungry, and that it was getting late. ‘Let’s go and get something to eat.’
    Quite content