The Children Act

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.

“‘Fiona, when did we last make love?’ When did they? He had asked this before, in moods plaintive to querulous. But the crowded recent past can be difficult to recall. The Family Division teemed with strange differences, special pleading, intimate half-truths, exotic accusation. And as in all branches of law, fine-grained particularities of circumstance needed to be assimilated at speed.”

The interplay between Fiona Mayes’s reflections on her marriage and reflections on her work introduces the conflicts that originate from Resolving the Intersection of Personal and Professional Life. Fiona can’t remember the last time she and her husband Jack had sex because the entirety of her “recent past” feels “crowded” with her vocational concerns. While her home and marital life are void of event-based memories, she sees her professional life as rife with activity, questions, and intrigue. Her contrasting regard for her personal and professional spheres shows how Fiona has prioritized work over her husband.

“Self-pity in others embarrassed her, and she wouldn’t have it now. She was having a third drink instead. But she poured only a token measure, added much water and returned to her couch. Yes, it had been the kind of conversation of which she should have taken notes. Important to remember, to measure the insult carefully.”

Fiona tries to dismiss her frustrations with Jack by telling herself she’s above self-pity, an avoidance mechanism that exposes her fear of vulnerability. She is numbing her emotions by drinking—pouring herself “a third drink” instead of pitying herself—because she doesn’t want to confront the conflicts brewing in her personal life. Furthermore, she tries to regard her marital conflict via a legal lens, wishing she had “taken notes” so she could “measure [Jack’s] insult” more accurately. Her internal and external behavior in this passage captures her attempts to ward off intimacy and vulnerability by an over-adherence to the law.