In Good Faith
Copyright© 2026 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 2: More Than a Building
The View From The Cello Section: More Than A Building
Tuesday, 1 April 2014 · 11:34 p.m.
My boyfriend now owns ten percent of a law firm. I can say that because it’s now public record.
I’ve read that sentence several times. The boyfriend part still does rather distracting things to my stomach, making it hard to give the rest the attention it deserves. He also owns the building. Well, his company, Wintersmith, owns the building. Or one of its subsidiaries does. A different subsidiary owns the share in the law firm. It’s quite complicated, but there are distinctions, and I am studying Law; I ought to respect distinctions.
The office is a very large building. That’s understating it.
I stood in the atrium this afternoon with Lily, looking up at the glass ceiling and trying to reconcile the place with the person beside me. Later, upstairs, I watched him struggle to open a bottle of whisky.
Those two things have occupied rather a lot of my thoughts tonight.
Before anybody asks: no, none of this is an April Fool. I had intended to write about the weekend’s support-act announcement, then about Monday, which was pleasantly ordinary after a weekend that was anything but. Instead, I’ve spent this evening at the launch of a new law firm. There is a connection between all of that, although it took me some time to find it.
First, thank you for being so lovely about Sunday’s post. I’ve read your replies, some more than once. Carly, yours considerably more than once. I’m still getting used to telling you things without immediately constructing a defence of why I’ve told you them.
Anyway. Music. I can usually discuss that without blushing.
Sadie And Cody
I promised to tell you more once I could. Sadie Cole and Cody Vance are both joining the Alabama Sweetheart Tour, which means I can finally explain a little of what happened in that hotel ballroom in Atlanta.
I knew I was going to hear talented people. Nobody had been brought that far because they could just about manage a tune. What I hadn’t understood was how different it would feel to admire a performance and then find myself completely caught up in it.
Sadie did that to me. She’s thirty-one, from near Memphis, and has spent years playing the bars and clubs around Beale Street. Her grandfather taught her to play guitar, and her music draws on her Cherokee heritage and the blues traditions she’s lived and worked among. Please hold on to the years of work when you listen. She had a musical life long before any of us sat down on those sofas.
Her first song was Red Clay Blues. It was beautiful. I loved the roughness in her voice immediately, but what interested me most was how carefully she used it. She can lean into a phrase and make you feel she’s carried it for years, then ease back and leave something exposed. As a player, I notice that restraint. It takes confidence to know when you’ve given a phrase just enough.
I didn’t understand every layer of what she was singing about. I wouldn’t pretend a few minutes in a hotel gave me that understanding. I wanted to listen again, though. I wanted to hear more from her. Then Carly joined her for Walking in Memphis, and I stopped thinking about the strange circumstances which had put me in the room—I was simply very, very happy to be there.
Afterwards, we discussed what an opening act needs to do. Several of the panel thought they should get an audience excited and ready for the main performance. I thought Sadie would get them ready to feel something rather than get them excited.
I still do. If you’re coming to the shows, bring tissues. You’ll need them.
Cody is twenty-six, from Texas, with a wonderfully warm, deep voice that reminds me of Elvis. His tone has a tenderness that can make a line feel as though he’s speaking to one person in a quiet room. His first song, A Whiskey Glass and a Photograph, made everybody go quiet in that particular way where nobody wants to be responsible for breaking the spell.
On the surface, the situation was ordinary enough: somebody alone, missing someone, looking at a photograph. He made you stay there with him. The writing sounded simple until you noticed how much care went into making it seem effortless.
Then he sang Always with Carly. I know an awful lot of you have strong feelings about her singing that song. You will have some additional feelings about this. Marcus Thorne, Kayla’s Social Media Manager, who I’m sure you’ll all get to know very well over the next few months, has a recording of the performance. Walking in Memphis, too. If you ask him nicely, he might even release those recordings.
Sadie and Cody are very different artists. That’s part of why I’m excited about them sharing the tour. They bring different musical traditions and experiences, and neither sounds like a slightly altered version of Carly. When she told them she wanted both of them, you could see a professional decision become something intensely personal for the people receiving it. And for Kayla, actually.
I’m glad you can finally hear them for yourselves. Please arrive early enough to listen to the support acts. Give them your attention. I’d say that even if I hadn’t met them. But I have met them, and I can say without hesitation that they both deserve your support.
I’ve seen responses on Twitter and beyond suggesting their inclusion means talent has become secondary. There have been some very unkind phrases used about them both. But I was in the room. I heard them. They are very, very good. Both of them. Paul and Kayla would not have hired them if they weren’t.
It does matter that people who recognise something of themselves in Sadie or Cody will see them on those stages, but I don’t understand why acknowledging that is supposed to cancel out their music. Artists arrive with histories. The music they make comes from somewhere, and listening properly sometimes means being interested in where it comes from.
Sam said something during the auditions about the story, the guitar and the truth. I’ve kept thinking about it. Neither musician needed us to invent a story for them. They needed a chance to tell their own story to more people.
Under #WeHearYou, some of you have shared similar experiences with the kind of unpleasant words aimed at Sadie and Cody after the announcement. I’ve been reading those too. Some people write a few sentences about things they’ve spent years learning to describe. I hope those making jokes about the announcement take a little time to read them.
But I doubt they will. Those kinds of people never do.
Monday Was Ordinary
Monday involved lectures, lunch with friends and an evening at Paul’s house. I helped Imogen with dinner, then Paul and I watched another film cuddled up on the sofa. Yes, cuddling. I can write that now without adding a paragraph explaining what I mean.
I like it.
I submitted the essay, and my university work continues to exist. No amount of personal happiness persuades the Law Department that deadlines are optional. Unreasonable institution.
I’d been a little frightened that ordinary life might become awkward after Saturday, as though we would suddenly have to perform being a couple instead of being ourselves. We had dinner, discussed our days, disagreed about something comparatively unimportant and spent far too long saying goodnight. It was reassuring to discover that we could still do all those things.
The campfire seems to be working so far.
Brown Clapton Taggart
Today the Westmouth practice of JMS Law, a large, national firm, became an independent local firm. Brown Clapton Taggart is now a firm in its own right, and Paul’s investment helped make that possible. More than a hundred people whose future had been uncertain have kept jobs.
I can tell you the broad arrangement because it is, of course, now public record. Through Wintersmith, Paul owns ten percent of the firm. Senior lawyers and the branch’s managers own the rest. A separate Wintersmith subsidiary owns the office building, which the practice occupies as a tenant. Owning part of the professional business and owning its premises are different interests, even if both involve the same person.
I’m not going to explain the transaction. Those details aren’t mine to discuss, and I would need rather more than my current education to explain all of it properly. Will Brown and the other partners have done an enormous amount of work. Paul provided financial and commercial support, but the people establishing and running the independent firm still have to do that work.
That matters when people talk about him saving it. There are a great many people involved who deserve credit, including the staff who have continued doing their jobs while wondering whether those jobs would still exist.
I kept thinking about them tonight. People with bills, families, summer plans, and all the knowledge that never quite makes it into a job description. I know something about the uncertainty redundancy brings into a house. Dad losing his job hasn’t stopped mattering because exciting things have happened elsewhere in my life.
There’s a connection with Atlanta. Sadie and Cody could already make extraordinary music. The people in that office already knew how to do their work. Their ability wasn’t what was missing, but money and decisions made elsewhere could still determine what happened to them next.
Neither a place on a tour nor an independent firm guarantees success. The musicians still have to perform. The lawyers still have to serve clients and run a viable practice. An opportunity can change what is possible, but it doesn’t remove the work involved to take advantage of it. That seems worth taking seriously.
I haven’t abandoned last week’s questions because I’m in love with somebody making some of these decisions. Being proud of him could very easily do my thinking for me. I don’t want that, and I don’t think he would want it either.
The firm’s independence and its duties to its clients matter. So do the arrangements between the practice, its investor and its landlord. Good intentions don’t make those questions disappear, or settle how people will be treated next month and next year. An investment needs to be judged by what happens after the celebration as well as what made the celebration possible.
But I am allowed to be happy about today. Everyone is.
Paul hasn’t simply given money away; he’s helped make a business possible, with the prospect of earning a return. The people working there have a future to build rather than an ending to prepare for. I’m pleased for them, and proud of what he’s helped achieve.
I’m also going to do my work experience there this summer. The offer is real. Research, administration, shadowing and whatever unglamorous task someone can safely entrust to a first-year student. I’m excited about it all. I’m not expecting responsibility for a murder trial. I would quite like to be allowed near a case file or two.
Then I walked into the building and suddenly became conscious of how much I don’t know, and how soon I’ll be expected to find my way around an actual office in appropriate shoes which I don’t yet own.
No, Alabama, cowboy boots are not appropriate shoes.
The Atrium And The Dress
I hadn’t been inside before. Paul had described it, but my mental picture was inadequate. The entrance opens into an enormous atrium, with offices around it, corridors and stairways leading away, and all that space rising towards the glass overhead. It makes quite an impression on someone who has spent most of her working life at a desk in her bedroom.
Lily and I looked up, then round, then at each other. Paul seemed surprised we were so impressed. Familiarity, it seems, lets you stop noticing that a place looks as though people make decisions there that involve more money than your entire street.
I told him I would stand in the entrance every morning and admire it. He pointed out that I’d never get anything done. Fair. I suspect I’ll notice it for a while yet, though.
The reception staff knew him from his work experience last summer. Today he was a shareholder, and one of the people who had helped make the new firm possible. One of the receptionists called him Mr Robertson. He immediately objected. She’d managed perfectly well with Paul before, he pointed out. She pointed out that his circumstances had changed somewhat.
Watching him try to respond to somebody thanking him for helping preserve her job was quite something. He obviously knew what the deal meant. Knowing a number and having a person look you in the face and tell you what it means to them are different experiences. He seemed to run out of places to put all the compliments and heartfelt thanks he received throughout the evening.
I recognised that. I’ve been known to do something similar when a certain singer discusses songwriting credits. Yes, Carly. I heard myself.
For the people who will ask, I wore my little black concert dress, the one from Germany. The blue dress isn’t required for every occasion just because I own it now. This one has sleeves and a high neckline, with a hem slightly shorter than I’d choose for playing cello. Fortunately, nobody asked me to perform.
Paul collected Lily and me in a light grey suit, with a lavender shirt and lilac tie. He looked extremely handsome. I can say that now. Although it still takes some getting used to. When I opened the door, he went quiet long enough for me to wonder whether something was wrong. Eventually he told me I needed to stop taking his breath away.
I explained that it was an old concert dress. He didn’t seem to think that addressed the point. It hasn’t acquired special powers since I last wore it, so I’m beginning to suspect the significant change is Paul.
This is pleasing information.
Before The Reception
The main reception was a proper business occasion, with staff, clients and people who work with the practice celebrating its new beginning. Before that, Paul had arranged a smaller gathering in the top-floor boardroom, with family, friends and some of the people who had helped bring the firm into existence.
I’d helped with a little of the preparation. I knew about a bottle, three glasses, and how carefully he’d thought about when to share it. I knew he was nervous. What I hadn’t known was why this particular date mattered.
Today would have been his dad’s fifty-fifth birthday.
I found out when he told the room. For a moment, I wished he’d told me sooner. I hadn’t needed to arrange anything; I would simply have liked to know what he was carrying alongside all the preparations.
Then I looked at him and thought about how new this is. We’ve known each other for years and become very close over these past few months. We’ve only just begun learning to let each other into certain places. I can tell him he doesn’t have to keep things to himself, and I mean it. The rest will take time. But his remembrance of his father didn’t need to become a public discussion of my feelings about what I had and hadn’t told.
I’ve checked with Paul about sharing the broad story here. The occasion was personal, and I’m leaving a great deal with the people whose memories they are.
Paul’s father, Ben, belonged to a group of four friends who had known each other since university, which included Will, who is now one of Paul’s business partners; Lily’s father, Pete; and Clarissa’s father, Andy Liddington. They kept up a tradition of meeting for dinner and sharing particularly good whisky for many years after leaving Cambridge. As work and families made it harder to see each other, they made a point of arranging regular get-togethers.
I like that. I hope something similar happens with the friends I make in Westmouth.
Listening to Paul explain this to the room, I realised he’d grown up with an example of chosen family long before gathering one of his own. Some of the people who loved his parents are still there for him now, with stories of them he couldn’t have known otherwise. I’m beginning to understand how much that means.
Ben had bought a very special bottle of whisky for one of those dinners but he died before they could drink it together. Paul kept it unopened for seven years.
Seven years.
Tonight he brought it to share with Will and Pete, the two remaining members of that group of four friends.
Three Glasses
A wooden box sat on the table. I’ve been to some impressive events lately, but I don’t think anybody in that room wanted to look at anything else.
Will and Pete recognised the bottle and knew what Ben had intended. Those in the room who knew about whisky were astonished that Paul meant to open it. They discussed rarity and value, and the sums were startling. I don’t know enough to contribute intelligently to that discussion. But I could see it mattered not one jot to Paul—he’d already decided to open it.
His dad bought it for an evening with people he loved. Paul wanted to keep a promise to his dad’s friends. How much it might sell for explained nothing at all about why it was on that table.
I’ve written quite a lot recently about accepting presents, and watched what Paul’s gifts meant to Will and Vicky when we came home from Atlanta. Tonight I was looking at something he’d kept, and at the people he’d chosen to open it with. Keeping it safe had mattered for years. Now he wanted to do something else with it.
He looked round the room before opening it. He looked at me. I smiled and nodded. Such a small thing to do. I was very glad I was there to do it.
His hands were shaking. He’d stood up in Atlanta and spoken to a room full of people without preparing a word. Tonight, he found it difficult to open a bottle. I knew enough of its history to understand why, although that isn’t the same as understanding everything he felt.
He offered it to Will, who gave it back. Nobody hurried him. Nobody tried to make a joke to make the moment easier on themselves. We let him take all the time he needed.
Eventually he opened it and poured three glasses. Will, Pete, and Paul stood together and raised their glasses to the people who should have been there.
To absent friends.
To Paul’s father.
I watched him close his eyes when he took the first sip. Then I watched him breathe.
I can’t tell you what happened inside his head. I won’t invent something beautiful and pretend I know. Something in his expression changed, but it isn’t my place to say what it meant. If he wants to tell me, I hope he will. If he hasn’t got words for it, I hope he knows he doesn’t have to find them for my benefit.
I wanted to be close to him. I was grateful he’d asked us to be there.
There are things about loving someone you can imagine beforehand. Kissing them, holding hands, getting a message and smiling like an idiot at your phone in a corridor. Other things you don’t think to imagine: standing quietly while they do something they’ve needed years to feel ready for, realising there’s no useful speech to make, and being able to catch their eye.
What Comes Home With Us
I never met Ben. I wish I had. I’d like to have seen them together, heard the jokes everybody else had heard too often, discovered which bits of Paul would have made immediate sense if I’d spent an afternoon with his father. Everything I know comes through people who loved him. I hope I’ll hear more of their stories.
Dad’s opinion of Ben mattered when Paul came to our house. Tonight, people in the room knew him differently, as a friend who came to dinner, with children, work, and things he meant to do. Paul’s grief belongs to him, but so does the possibility of hearing about his father from people who remember parts of him Paul never saw.
The building felt like a new beginning, and upstairs they were remembering people who couldn’t be there. Neither made the other feel out of place. Paul could be pleased about what he’d helped achieve and miss his dad. He could make me blush at the front door and later struggle to get the next sentence out.
I love the person all of that belongs to. I’m still learning him.
At the reception afterwards, people had drinks, met the partners and talked about the future. I enjoyed meeting some of the people who work there, though I was very aware I’d return as the student who needs things explained. Lily and I continued to be insufficiently dignified about the atrium.
Tomorrow those people will go back to work. Clients will make appointments, letters will be written, and someone will know how to handle the things the rest of the office has forgotten how to do. Across the Atlantic, Sadie and Cody are preparing to stand in front of audiences who haven’t heard them yet. It’s easy to focus on Paul’s investment or Carly’s decision. What interests me is what other people can do once those decisions have been made.
They still have their own futures to build. I’m glad they get the chance.
For me, tomorrow brings lectures, work, messages about lunch and probably another argument about whether my film choices count as an education.
For the record, they do.
This summer I’ll walk back into that enormous building for work experience. There’s rather a lot to look forward to. On Sunday I told you I was happy. I still am, very much. Tonight made me sad too. I thought about my own parents and how easily I assume there will be another birthday, another dinner, another chance to hear a story properly.
I don’t know whether opening the bottle made Paul feel better. I hope it did. He didn’t need me to make the occasion better or explain what it meant. He wanted me there, and I was.
When we talked about the campfire, I was imagining ordinary evenings together. I think it includes learning how to sit beside someone when the evening isn’t ordinary, when being there matters more than knowing what to say.
Tonight I keep remembering three glasses and the way he looked round the room.
Tags: #Brown Clapton Taggart #Westmouth #Law #work experience #opportunity #Sadie Cole #Cody Vance #Alabama Sweetheart Tour #We Hear You #chosen family #Ben Robertson #absent friends #Paul #unguarded #the campfire #April
Selected Comments on “More Than a Building”
namesandmemory reblogged cellolana:
“Tonight I keep remembering three glasses and the way he looked round the room.” I expected a post about the new law firm. I wasn’t expecting to cry about a bottle of whisky.
cellolana replied: Neither was I, when the evening began. I knew something was planned, but hadn’t understood quite how much it would mean.
ordinarygirl1989 replied: AND IT WAS HIS DAD’S BIRTHDAY.