by Gardam, Jane
Streams of black gowns pouring about, papers flapping, lap-tops gleaming, wigs on rakish, neck-bands flopping in the breeze. Home, he thought, I am home and young again. Bugger Dorset and the living dead.
And it was lunch time. I’ll go to lunch at the Inn. They’ll remember me. It can’t be more than ten years. Say fifteen. And it’s free. I am a life member, A Bencher—of this Inn.
Inner Temple Hall was roaring as he used his old key to let himself in (watch-chain). Then up the stairs. He pushed at the swing doors to the Hall. Hundreds of them inside, hundreds! Yelling! How much bigger they all are than we were. No rationing now. What a size some of them—. Sitting down to plates of what looks like excellent hot food. Stacks of it. Fiscal-Smith had not been offered breakfast. Only that watery tea.
Fiscal-Smith set down his substantial over-night valise and went to pee. No gentleman now, he thought, ever makes use of the facilities on British Rail. So sad. There were once towels even in third class. The W.Cs. now look like oil-drums. They can trap you inside them. Enough of that for one day.
Fiscal-Smith tidied himself up and made for the dining-hall, and was stopped on the threshold. ‘Yes, sir? May we help?’
‘Fiscal-Smith.’
‘Are you a member of this Inn, sir?’
He tried a withering look.
‘Bencher. For more than half a century. I am from the North. I am seldom here.’
‘We may have to ask you to pay, sir.’
As he turned the colour of damson jam someone called to him from the High Table where senior Silks and judges were leaning about like a da Vinci frieze. Sharks, whales, porpoises above the ocean floor. Scarcely registering the shoals of minnows in the waters below but not near them.
‘Fiscal-Smith! Good God! Over here, over here. Excellent!’ and he felt at once much better.
‘Been staying with old Pastry Willy’s widow in Dorset. Invited me back after Filth’s do yesterday. Very old friends of course.’
Nobody seemed to have heard of Pastry Willy.
‘Good do, I thought,’ said the oldest of the great fish. Touching. Very well-attended, considering his age. Weren’t you a particular friend?’
Fiscal-Smith sat down, comforted. Roast pork, vegetables with nuts in, gravy and apple sauce were put before him and he was asked if he would like a glass of wine.
‘Extraordinary,’ he told a childish-looking Silk beside him. ‘When I was starting out and we came to lunch here it was bread and cheese and soup and beer. And free. We were thinner, too. And more awake perhaps in the court in the afternoons.’
‘During the War?’
‘Afterwards. Just after. Place here all dust you know. Direct hit. First made me think there might be a future in Building Contracts. Early in the War I don’t think there was any lunch at all. But I was still at school then.’
‘Really? Were you? Where were you?’
‘Oh, in the north. I’m Catholic you know. Roman Catholic.’
‘Not much in the way of work in those days, I hear?’
‘No. Not for years after the War,’ said Fiscal-Smith. ‘Fighting was passé. We’d lost the taste for it. So poor we washed our shirts and bands ourselves. Fourpence at the laundry. We bought this new stuff—detergent. ‘Dreft’ it was called. And a Dolly Blue. Starched them too. Too poor for wives. Tramped the streets in our de-mob suits looking for Chambers.’
‘It’s said that even Filth and Veneering couldn’t get Chambers. Did they hate each other from the start? Did you know them then?’
‘I knew Veneering from being eight years old.’
‘Yet nobody ever really knew him—we understand?’
Fiscal-Smith kept a conceited silence.
At length he said, ‘I was Veneering’s oldest friend on earth.’
Then he added, seeing a suggestion of Veneering’s sour old man’s face somewhere up in the repaired rafters of the Great Hall, ‘He was much cleverer than I was of course. So was Old Feathers—they called him Old Filth. Both wonderful brains.’
‘So,’ someone eating apple-crumble and custard, called from down the table, ‘So we understand. One wonders why they stuck so long with the Construction Law. Charismatic, well-educated, intellectuals. Double Firsts. A life-time writing building contracts and a twilight of editing Hudson. No politics. No crime. No international high-lights.
‘I can tell you why.’
Fiscal-Smith stretched his short—very old—legs under the table, legs that earlier that day had been disguised under a choir-boy’s cassock. ‘I was present. They made a joint decision. It occurred in the Brighton County Court. I was Veneering’s unpaid pupil and I’d gone down with him there to observe. It was a gross indecency case.’
‘Yes,’ said the apple-crumble eater, ‘Can’t see Old Filth distinguishing himself there. Veneering—possibly. More worldly man. And merrier. Bit of a clown.’
‘None of us was merry that day,’ said Fiscal-Smith. ‘All of us fairly depressed. We went to Brighton of course by train—none of us had a car. Train called The Brighton Belle. Beautiful train. Ran every hour on the hour. Pink linen table-cloths and table lamps even in the Second Class which I think was still called Third. What the first class was like—. Maybe solid silver and bits of parsley on the sandwiches—I don’t know. Veneering and I sat at one table and aristocratic Filth sat as far away as possible from both of us at another, with his back to us, fountain-pen poised. Small glass of dry sherry. Filth and Veneering hadn’t then exactly quarrelled. It was long before the infidelity. Long before Filth marrying Betty. Or perhaps that is all forgotten now? It was just something brewing. Inexplicable. Witch’s brew. Or simple distaste.’
‘Ah, it happens,’ said the apple-crumble eater.
‘Well, the train was late. Stood still God knows how long. Fizzing steam. Could hear people cough. No information of course. No tannoys then. We stuck on the line for an hour, took two taxis to the Brighton County Court from the station, arrived after mid-day. Furious judge. Sent us to the back of the queue. Didn’t get on till after three o’ clock. Filth prosecuting, Veneering for the defence.’
‘Gross indecency?’
‘Yes. Ridiculous. Occurred in a circus.’
‘What, with animals? Bestiality?’
‘No. Lion-tamer’s apprentice.’
‘You’re not making this up, Fiscal-Smith?’
‘No. Lump of a lad. Retarded. Maybe Down’s Syndrome. Employed most of his time shovelling dung. Dirty-looking child. He’d been going round during the performances under the tiers of seats in the Big Top, and tickling the private parts of women in the audience with a long straw. Up through the slats.’
‘You are making this up!’
‘No. Tickle-tickle. They would all start wriggling and scratching. All round the tiers like a Mexican wave. In those days, you know, ladies’ tights hadn’t been invented (Yes thank you. I will. The claret is still excellent) and there were all these pale pink arcs of skin between the stocking-tops and the knickers. School-girls, I believe, used to call the gaps ‘smiles’ or ‘sights’.
‘Well, the lion-tamer’s boy went along beneath the rows tickling all the smiles and you should have heard the pristine Filth going on about him. “Obscene”, “Depraved” etc. and the judge nodding his head. Veneering and I wriggling about, at first trying not to laugh. Shaking the papers about. “Perverted.” Then Veneering just slammed down the Brief and walked out.’
‘What! Out of Court? He walked out of Court!’
‘Yes. Slam, bang up the aisle, through the swing doors and out. Filth had risen to his feet, turned and watched him go. Closed his eyes as if the King had died. And nobody said a word.’
‘So, I thought I’d better go and find him. I asked for permission and ran out. Judge said nothing. Looked struck by lightning. “Unheard of.” “Unbelievable.” “Taken ill?” etc. whispered
around. I bowed, and then ran and found Veneering dragging on a cigarette in the corridor. I said—and by the way Filth’s solicitor, the dwarf, had appeared from somewhere—
‘Yes. The Albert Ross. Dodgy—.’
‘Veneering was shouting, “Bloody, pompous, fucking toffs.” Never been in the world—I happened to know that Veneering had a penchant for circuses—and he thundered back into court—no excuses—and put up a great performance about what fools we were making of ourselves. Wastage of court’s time. Harmless prank. Bleak life in the circus. Boy orphaned. Neglected. Confused. Unloved. Half-starved.
But that boy got three months. Three months! Filth standing there, Holy Moses. Very pleased with himself. And we all paraded out except for the lion-tamer’s boy who was taken to the Black Maria in hand-cuffs.’
‘Unbelievable! When was this?’
‘Well—look it up. It’s in the statute book. Just after the War.’
‘I suppose a century before it would have been a hanging.’
‘A century before,’ Fiscal-Smith said, ‘it would not have come to court at all. Audience would have dealt with it on site.’
‘Thrown him to the lions,’ said the apple-crumble Lord.
‘Well, anyway—this is an excellent cheese—on the way home Veneering said to me—we’d treated ourselves to a small gin and orange—“That’s settled it, Fiscal-Smith. I don’t think I’ve much of a future in Crime. I’m going for the Commercial Bar.” I told him that he’d probably find Old Filth there too. Filth may have won but he was way out of his depth with circuses. And easily shocked. Veneering said, “Well, I suppose that will have to be endured.”
After the coffee, Fiscal-Smith made for the London Underground feeling greatly restored. Yet as the tube rattled along to King’s Cross, everybody sitting blank and dreary staring at their thoughts, his good-humour ebbed. It was now mid-afternoon.
In the Flying Scotsman, heading North—not the old patrician Flying Scotsman but a flashy lowlander calling itself so—the seats, his being one of the last free, were lumpy and small. The train was cold. In two other seats at the small table for four there were two lap-tops plugged in and hard at work. In the fourth seat was an unwashed young man rhythmically nodding his head, an intrusive metallic hissing emanating from the machinery in his ears. The journey was to take three hours, the corridor packed solid towards the Buffet and a cup of tea. No drinks’ trolley. Where had he put his over-night case? The luggage rack was too narrow for anything but a brief-case or a coat. He was wishing for a coat. A coat on his back. He was really cold now. Actually, he was shivering.
Nobody spoke. Nobody smiled. Many coughed. Above the perpetual restless shuffling noises of the lap-tops, raucous, overhead messages about where the train was going and where it would stop and which would be the next station-stop quacked out every few minutes. Ding-dong signals shouted into mobile phones up and down the coach had one loud universal message: that their owner was expecting to be met by a car at his destination.
Met. Fiscal-Smith had made no arrangements to be met at Darlington. He was slipping. Why ever had he wasted all that time telling those old bores on the Bench about the lion-tamer’s apprentice of over sixty years ago? Shouldn’t drink at lunch-time. Broken the life-time rule of his profession. Long day. Those church vestments! That time with Susan on Tisbury station telling her about Veneering. Sulky Sue. Feeling hot now. And cold. Not so young as I was. Ninety in a few years. Ye gods!
At York many alighted but many more struggled aboard. ‘You OK, chum?’ asked a Jamaican who was replacing the man with the electronic ears. Still strange to see a Jamaican up north. Like Jamaicans. Good case there once. Six months sunlight. Veneering’s junior. Old Mona Hotel outside Kingston. Sunsets. Lizards. Rum and pineapple. Case about a gigantic drain. Old Princess Royal there. Could she drink gin! Wouldn’t go to bed. All her ladies-in-waiting asleep on their feet. Queen Mother? Blue eyes. Blue as Lady Mountbatten’s. Now, there was a—. Should have told those babes in arms at the Inner Temple how the Queen Mother once came to dinner in Lincoln’s Inn and beamed round and said, ‘What a lot of Darkies.’
I really do feel rather ill.
At Darlington he clambered out, the Jamaican helping with his bag, coming along the platform with him, trying to find someone to give the old guy a hand.
No-one. Dark night.
He tramped the long platform, down the steps and through the tunnel of white glazed brick. Contemptuously—no contemporary—with Stevenson probably. Graffiti. Strange faces in the shadows. Urine-smells. On the empty taxi-rank he waited, feeling his forehead. It was on fire.
‘Where?’ asked the taxi driver twenty minutes later. ‘Yarm? It’s ten miles!’
‘The Judges Hotel.’
‘I doubt it’s going to be open this time of night. It’s dark.’
‘I can’t get to my own house tonight, it’s up on the moor. On my grouse moor, actually.’
‘They’ll have to fly you in then. I’m not risking that road up. Come on then, mister, hop in. We’ll try the Hanging Judges. I’ll give them a bell.’
‘I was ringing church bells this morning at half-past five,’ Fiscal-Smith told him, and thought, I’m wandering. This day is a feverish dream. Not good. Lived too long.
But through the oak door of what had once been the very comfortable Assize-Court lodging for itinerant judges, a woman in disarray was coming running, shouting and waving a torch.
‘Whatever time o’ night d’you call this, Fred? Why din’t yer book in? Yes, there’s a bed and yes you can have the downstairs Sir Edward had with the gold-fish and the bears. Quick, you’re not well. Top and tail wash while I find you a hot-water bottle. I’ll bring you a tray to bed. At your age! Should be ashamed. A man with a good brain—except for living in that daft place up the hill. Hot milk and aspirins. No—no whisky. You’re shaking. It’ll be the bird flu and stress. Doctor first thing tomorrow. I looked down the Telegraph list of folk at Sir Edward’s memorial service and first thing I thought, Now then, did he tek his coat? I meant you.’
Deep in good wool blankets—none of your duvets—roasting with two hot-water bottles, fore and aft—and a tray across his stomach (ham sandwiches which he did not want) Fiscal-Smith sank into fitful sleep. Old Filth had slept in this bed. What’s left of him now in Malayan swamp? Gold-fish bubbling. Terrible teddy bears. Queer massage machine for feet. Chamber pot! Chamber-pot! Like the Cossack and Muriel Street. ‘Please do not feed the fish.’ ‘Click here for music’. No, no. Silence in court.
Someone was switching things off. Covering him with an extra blanket. Talking about him, but just to herself. Didn’t have to answer. North is a better country.
* * *
Did I really tell them about that case? The ladies’ parted legs? The ‘smiles’? Personally never seen such things. Wouldn’t want to. Dulcie. Very long day. Poor Veneering dead on Malta! Never thought ahead. None of us.
I shall probably die now. Bugger the Temple, The Knights Templar.
What’s left of them will have to come up here to mine. Do them good.
CHAPTER 11
About ten years after the Guy Fawkes Party, London blazing and bombardment of cities all over the country, Terry Venetski, safe from the Works, and now one of Mr. Fondle’s elite, came home from school at The Towers one day to No. 9 Muriel Street carrying a third letter to his parents, formally addressed and sealed.
He was taller now than either of them, broader and stronger. His hair was still extraordinary, wild and long, and white gold, and he had the same alert charm as the baby born nearly fourteen years ago after the Russian circus came to town. The letter said:
“In view of hostilities in the south of the country and the attacks on our ports and industrial centres I and the Governors of my School, The Towers, are asking for parents’ views on its evacuation to Canada in September.
A magnificent ne
wly-built cruise-liner recently completed in India, The City of Benares, has generously been put at our disposal by the government, mostly for London children rendered homeless by the Blitz. There are berths for two hundred children, all of whom will travel free. There are also private passengers, trained voluntary foster-parents for the journey, excellent fostering promised for the time in Canada, however long this may be.
The ship is luxuriously appointed with excellent food, entertainments and comforts. The stewards are highly-trained, and love children. They almost all come from the city of Benares in India. All are ready for torpedo attacks and the ship will of course be escorted by corvettes of the Royal Navy. Mrs. Fondle will be accompanying us and we plan to remain in Canada for the duration of the war.
Nothing can be agreed upon unless all parents support the evacuation. We ask for an immediate reply. Signed HAROLD FONDLE, M.A. OXON.”
Terry tossed the letter upon the bed as he came in, then went out again and down to the Palace Cinema where he met up with a waiting girl and they went into the back row, supposedly to watch Deanna Durbin in A Hundred Men and a Girl.
The Cossack lay on his bed. He held the letter unopened in his hand for an hour.
Later Peter Parable came in. He and the Odessan read the letter.
The Odessan said, ‘This will be the end of Florrie.’
‘Send her with him. I have money,’ said Parable.
‘She’d not leave me. And no-one will take me to Canada.’
Before long Florrie arrived, warm and clean from the sandstone bath-house and drying her soft hair. She stopped and looked at them.
‘What’s this then?’
She took the letter and after reading it slowly put it down again on the bed. She filled the kettle and set it to boil. She said, ‘I’m glad we somehow got that wireless in. It’s terrible you know in London.’
‘They’ll be up here next,’ said the Odessan. ‘You must move in with us, Peter Parable. They’ll not let you live on by the shore.’