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CHAPTER 4

Four Months Ago, Law School, Last Night of Term

‘You’re a fucking bitch, Amanda Bentley!’

Martin Gregg is glaring at me with so much fury in his eyes, it’s quite unsettling.

This is the unpleasant climax of a situation which has been simmering for the past nine months, since we both started law school.

There we all were, newbies on our first day of term, excited and ready to become the baby-est of barristers. New files, pens and a whole load of optimism filled the space-age teaching room.

Twenty minutes into the first seminar, Martin Gregg swaggered in without so much as an apology. By the end of the morning he’d boasted to everyone in our group that his father was a judge, he’d attended ‘the best’ boarding school in the UK and could walk into any pupillage in the north-east because of his ‘family connections’. Not exactly the best way to make friends.

He was quite short for a man, but what he lacked in height he made up for in attitude. He was one of those people who’d say they ‘played rugby’ and that’s why they were big, but really, they just carried too much weight. As a result, he couldn’t pull off the (designer) clothes he wore and looked ridiculous (the T-shirts were always too tight, collars were always up, ‘natch). Oh, and his hair; basically a great big sculpted chunk of black Lego hair, almost as if he removed it each night and clipped it back on every morning. A big mass of dense awfulness. Yuk. But it seemed money could buy anything in Martin Gregg’s world… everything except me.

‘You’re so different to all the other girls I’ve known…’ he’d say.

Thank God for that.

‘You’re so… spiky, Amanda,’ he’d say in a way that suggested he got turned on by the very nature of my ‘spikiness’ (whatever that was).

At the beginning, I just took him for an arrogant fool, boring everyone with his bragging anecdotes of polo days and spending weekends with Lord Someone-or-Other.

Then, after a few months, he started slithering up to me asking if I wanted to ‘go for a drink’. I very firmly, but politely, told him ‘no’ on several occasions. Each time, he’d smirk at me, like I obviously just didn’t get how wonderful he was but would in time. It seemed to be the case that on every occasion I rejected him, the more he wanted me. I became a challenge to him. Maybe I was just the ultimate bit of rough he wanted to take home and parade in front of his parents; a rite of passage for all posh boys, bringing home the pretty girl from the council estate just to enrage Father, bang her a few times just to say you’ve done it.

Whatever it was, he set his sights on me and was getting a piece of it one way or another. It was like a creepy infatuation.

In the meantime, all I could do was cringe, watching him scrape through law school, doing the bare minimum to survive. He was one of those smart-arses; the ones who would question the teacher’s ability and authority while the normal members of the group would sink back into their chairs and cringe. Nobody liked him so lord only knew where he got his arrogance from.

‘But have you considered this point, Mr Fletcher?’ he’d ask, cockily, leaning back in his chair.

Erm, yes, Martin. I’m pretty sure the lecturer – an experienced, practising barrister of seventeen years – knows more about this subject than you. In short, he was an advocate of the ‘if you can’t blind them with your knowledge, dazzle them with your bullshit’ school of thought.

It all came to a head on this night we’d come out to celebrate our last exam. We deserved it. It had been such a long year. Hours spent in seminars, long nights in the library, many tears shed over whether we’d pass our oral exams – would the nerves make us stutter in front of the examiners?

The whole class piled into the Union bar as soon as it finished.

We survived.

The bar was blaring out summer tunes, the sun shone in through the large windows, and that overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, which sets in immediately following exams, consumed us.

And then he came in.

He didn’t have any friends so he just kept attaching himself to small groups of people who were obviously desperate to get rid of him as he knocked back Jack Daniels and coke, buying shots for everyone in a desperate bid to be liked.

After a few hours, drunk, and even more vile than usual, he snared me at the bar as I was waiting to be served.

‘So, Amanda, you gonna miss me when I’m gone?’ he asked, leaning his elbow on the bar in a way he presumably thought was cool, sexy or both. There wasn’t a hint of irony in his voice.

‘Erm, nope,’ I replied, moving away from him, staring straight ahead at the bar.

‘Oh, come on, you know you will. We never really got to know each other, did we?’ he whispered into my ear, putting his hand on my arse over my denim shorts.

I turned to face him. ‘No, Martin, we didn’t,’ I growled, forcefully removing his hand. ‘But if you ever touch me like that again, I’ll fucking kill you. Do you understand?’

He stood back, a few feet away, looking right at me. His entire repulsive face screwed up, his enormous black eyebrows chunked together like two dead slugs. He appeared shocked and pissed off, rather like the behaviour he’d just displayed was completely acceptable and I was overreacting.

‘Do you know what you are, Amanda?’ he spat at me. ‘You’re a tease…’

‘How exactly am I a tease?!’ I screeched in his face.

‘This little cat and mouse game you’ve been playing me all year…’

‘Woah! Martin Let’s be clear about this…’ I held my hands out in a ‘let’s just calm down’ way, aware I was raising my voice, but I was not having him accusing me of leading him on. ‘There’s been NO game. I’ve openly despised you. Are you that arrogant, you think all women want you? That you’re irresistible in some way?!’ I mean, I laughed in his face because it’s so ridiculous. He’s a joke.

‘Do you even understand who I am?!’ he said, like he thought he was actually a film star. ‘Look at you and look at me. You should be thrilled I even gave you the time of day! I usually wouldn’t even talk to someone like you. Only reason I did is because I fancied a bit of that ass, but that’s all you’ve got going for you. You’ll end up back on a council estate where you belong…’

I was actually embarrassed for him.

Unbeknown to both of us, people had gathered around, watching the spectacle unfold. There was only one person disgracing themselves, and it wasn’t me.

I started laughing because he really did think he was it. His whole life, he’d been told he could have anything he wanted, and now he couldn’t. He looked furious.

‘What?’ he yelled, nastily. ‘You find it funny you’re going nowhere? You think someone like you can actually make it at the Bar?! You’re wasting your time, babe…’

‘Martin,’ I said in the most patronising voice I could find. ‘I’ve consistently had the highest marks in our class all year. I’ve received two scholarships. I’ve earned – not bought – a pupillage interview at the best set of Chambers in the north-east. You’ll be lucky to pass this course. So do tell me how you think you’re superior to me…’

And that’s when he called me a ‘fucking bitch’.

‘It must be awful, not being able to buy your way out of something, Martin…’ I went on. I should probably have shut up but I’d had a drink and the guy needed to hear some home truths. ‘Good grades, the girl you fancy. Life’s a bitch, innit?’

Martin looked around the bar and was met with a wall of faces staring at him, saying more eloquently than a thousand words ever could: ‘you deserve this’.

‘You’ll regret this, Amanda. Nobody makes a fool out of a Gregg and gets away with it,’ he said, pushing past me and out the door.

I was just glad to see the back of him.

Everyone came up to ask if I was okay, and I felt fine. Just relieved I’d never have to see that nasty, toxic cretin again.