When Sir Peter appears unloading his papers and clothes onto Woody, as if he was a ‘manservant’ the first thing he says is what a relief it was to spent the morning in the Chancery court, rather than Criminal. He claims to prefer libel cases more than crime because ‘There are no facts. You’re arguing with things which no one can prove. You’re juggling with air, pure and simple. And these are the cases where I seem to do well.’ Irina tells him that their client has been beaten up in prison which he already knew, but seems quite unconcerned about. He flippantly says ‘Touch anything criminal and there’s always a mess.’ Irina is constantly trying to get him to engage with the case, saying that the attack on McKinnon helps their case as it proves the other two defendants were police informers who are worried that if McKinnon testifies they’ll be in trouble with whoever they informed upon, but Sir Peter, sipping his champagne, is highly dismissive. He shows his contempt here of prisoners, saying they’ll fight over anything, even ‘half an ounce of tobacco.’ He wants to lodge the appeal not on a possible miscarriage of justice but on the ‘far easier, far simpler, what we might call the ‘lame-dog’ appeal. The poor bastard is young; he’s got a wife and two children, one of them imperfect. It’s his first offence. So, on sentimental grounds, his sentence must be cut.’
Irina knows that, with Sir Peter’s experience, he could go ahead and do this and the sentence would very likely be reduced. But for her there is a principle involved, and she thinks it just isn’t right to proceed on this basis. But Sir Peter’s reaction when she says this is telling. The stage directions say that he ‘explodes,’ and he says ‘Right? What’s right to do with it?’ For him, the law is not about taking the principled route; it is about using the system to obtain the best results. Trying to prove that the police have planted evidence and that McKinnon has been leant upon is far too difficult and troublesome. He says, patronisingly ‘Irina, you have been my dinner date. You simply cannot be this naïve.’ He goes on to tell her that the police will simply close ranks, that a better name than police force would be police club, because that’s what it is. The implication being that as a member of this ‘club’ your first loyalty is to your fellow members, rather than to any idea of ‘justice.’ This shows Sir Peter’s cynicism. He explodes when Irina talks about what’s right but seems to view the idea of an essentially corrupt police force with equanimity. At this point in the scene Irina, who has always been courteous and even deferential to Sir Peter, raises her voice and accuses him of not believing Gerard’s account of what happened. He freely admits that he doesn’t, as ‘he’s fighting for his life,’ and so will do what he must, and say anything that will help his own case, ‘then find someone who’ll swallow it whole.’ He is implying that Irina has been manipulated by her client. He underlines the wealth of his own experience by telling Irina that he has ‘represented dozens of people like him.’ We see Irina’s anger increase when she sees how Sir Peter doesn’t view his criminal clients as individuals but as a ‘type’ – which he defines as ‘an ordinary, slightly sub-average human being who had landed himself in a damn stupid mess.’ He smiles at her outrage at this immensely patronising and snobbish evaluation as for him this is just so much enjoyable sparring, but Irina refuses to take it in this vein and the stage notes tell us that ‘a sudden lethal tone in her voice’ does rattle Sir Peter for the first time. But he is supremely confident in his own judgment, and has no real doubts. He goes on to tell her that his experience has given him certain skills, that he knows instinctively that McKinnon is a liar. So Irina challenges him to tell her whether she had been telling him the truth when she told him how much she enjoyed dinner at the Ritz and the Opera. When he says she must have done and adds that the tickets to the Opera had been extremely expensive she answers so forcefully that ‘in that case, it isn’t in doubt,’ Sir Peter is ‘genuinely shocked.’ She then challenges his claim about his infallible instinct and tells him that they are nothing of the sort because they ‘only have the status of prejudice.’ All that Irina has long felt about the cosiness and complacency of the Bar now comes out: their silly public-school nicknames for each other, the way winning a case is more about getting one over on a colleague than ensuring justice for the client. She tells him that all their wealth, honours and traditions act as ‘anaesthetic…to render you incapable of imagining life the other way round.’ She goes on to mock his KBE, which he finds offensive, and then tells him the reason he doesn’t like criminal law is not because it’s not an intellectual challenge but because it pays so much less than civil cases. When he protests that he brings the same level of skill and attitude she challenges this, as she knows from Woody that he would never have bothered to appeal had she not insisted. Sir Peter becomes calm now and admits he didn’t find the case interesting and the reason he got his client’s name wrong is that he only received the brief the night before, which would be true of three quarters of criminal cases. He is now defiant and tells her that he’s not a crusader and it’s not helpful to be ‘soggily compassionate’ because then, like Irina, one loses one’s judgement. For Sir Peter, it is quite clear: ‘There is a glass screen….our clients…live on one side of it. We are on the other. ‘
For Irina an appeals system that involves a wait of ten to twelve months before ‘the judges are ready’ to hear it, while she watches Gerard slowly lose himself in prison, is iniquitous, as is the way everybody shifts the blame. She challenges Sir Peter to admit that he could have done more and Sir Peter admits that he could have done…’And now I shall.’ Yet it’s clear from what he says next he doesn’t really see her point. He thinks he has been kind to her, giving her a tenancy at his chambers. But the scene ends with her telling him that he is constantly reminding her of his patronage, that it is his to confer and his to withdraw. And she is expected to be grateful, to thank him for every kindness. She tells him ‘It’s hard to say thank you ten times a day. Because the effort is finally demeaning.’ She doesn’t need another father. ‘Not now, No, thank you.’ And with that final rejection she walks out of the room.
This scene uses the two characters skilfully to represent the entrenched, privileged world of the Bar being challenged by a newcomer. Irina’s race and gender mean she is not part of the old boy’s club to which most barristers and judges seem to be a part of. So she can look at them with objectivity. She has been prepared to try and blend in, to play by the rules, but in this scene she can bear it no more and challenges the lazy orthodoxies that Sir Peter tries to defend. He in his turn finds her idealism hopelessly naïve. He is not a completely appalling character: we can see that he is genuinely fond of his pupil, and he has never made any sexual advances towards her, he just enjoys his colleagues assuming that he has. Hare is too subtle a writer to make him corrupt. Sir Peter does not need to break the rules, as he does very well by them: it is the system itself that is flawed. As Irina makes clear, civil cases, such as libel, pay massively better than criminal ones, so it pays the barristers to prepare well and at length. The rewards being not so great, in spite of Sir Peter’s protestations, criminal clients are not as well represented. Irina shows her integrity when she risks losing Sir Peter’s favour and patronage by standing up to him and challenging his attitudes. She has been silent long enough and now she must speak out. This is a powerful scene because we see a strong and intelligent woman stand up for the underdog from within a profession where, Hare suggests, complacency and privilege seem to be still very much the norm.