Rumpole Rests His Case

by John Mortimer

  There was tentative sunlight in Equity Court, and the falling drops of water from the fountain were coloured by it. Snowdrops and early daffodils were out in the Temple gardens. The scent of spring was nicely qualified by the smell of the small cheroot I was still obliged to smoke alfresco. I hadn't the heart to pursue Bonzo Ballard further – for the moment. He had behaved, I have to admit, with totally unexpected craftiness and some degree of courage. He had outsmarted me and I had to hand it to him. The day of reckoning would come, but perhaps not yet. The sour taste of a guilty verdict had passed. I had been tempted, perhaps for a dark moment, to hang up my wig, refuse all further work and await death in some dark corner of Pommeroy's Wine Bar, spinning out my half-bottle of Chateau Fleet Street and failing to finish the crossword. No longer. Spring had brought me an affray at Snaresbrook and I had thought of an ingenious defence. Rumpole was himself again.

  Rumpole and the Asylum Seekers

  It was about dawn on a bitterly cold April morning, with snow flurries and freezing fog, when a lorry, loaded with crates of imported mango chutney, was stopped in Dover Harbour. Men in bright-yellow jackets, inspecting the cargo, became suspicious at what appeared to be breathing holes in one of the crates. There was also a curious knocking as though some of the chutney was anxious to escape. Further investigation revealed the true nature of the cargo: not pickle but ten refugees from Afghanistan, men, women and three children. As they were liberated and lined up beside the lorry, an enterprising newsman got a picture of them which appeared, in blurred colour, on the front page of Hilda's tabloid under the headline ‘BRITAIN REPELS MANGO CHUTNEY INVADERS’.

  ‘When will it end, Rumpole?’ Hilda gazed into an uneasy future. ‘Soon we won't be able to tell Gloucester Road from Suez High Street.’

  ‘These are Afghans,’ I tried to explain. ‘I don't suppose they've been anywhere near Suez High Street, wherever that may be. What puzzles me is why on earth they want to come here.’

  ‘Why on earth shouldn't they? It's Britain.’ Hilda turned to a page headed ‘FAMOUS BOTTOMS. FIT THESE TO THE FACES OF THE STARS’, which she proceeded to study with great interest.

  ‘I mean spring has become indistinguishable from mid-winter. The Tube broke down last night and we spent an hour trapped between the Temple and Embarkment. All the animals have apparently got infectious diseases and the countryside is lit with funeral pyres. Get a bit ill and you're sentenced to forty-eight hours on a trolley. I'm surprised that anyone would take the trouble of creeping into the country disguised as some sort of exotic condiment.’

  ‘Rumpole! You're just trying to be irritating!’

  There was some truth in this accusation, but having found a theme I was loath to abandon it. ‘Anyway, why are they called “asylum seekers”? They used to be called refugees, which meant they were looking for a refuge from persecution. “Asylum seekers” means they're looking for a madhouse, which given the present state of the country might be an accurate description.’ I had worked myself into a state of gloom, and I was quite enjoying it.

  ‘What you want, Rumpole,’ Hilda had moved on to the ‘Home and Style' pages of her paper, ‘is a complete makeover.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A re-think. An adjustment to an entirely fresh concept. Like this flat.’

  ‘This flat? What's wrong with this flat?’

  I looked round our home, the mansion flat that is decidedly not a mansion. It has, however, the virtues of familiarity. The sitting-room carpet may have become a little worn, a little marked round the fireplace by the stubs of inaccurately thrown small cigars aimed for the grate, the chintz of the chair covers might have become a little faded, the cream paint less creamy, the wallpaper, to some extent, losing contact with the bathroom ceiling. But I liked the creaky reception of the sofa, and the shelves of read and re-read books. Even Dodo Mackintosh's water-colours depicting Lamorna Cove in doubtful weather had reached the status of old friends. As with my gown, which was ever in danger of coming apart at the seams, and my wig, which has long since lost its whiteness and achieved the respectably yellowish tinge of old parchment, I had grown contented with the appearance of the mansion flat which, when not blasted with the cold winds of Hilda's displeasure, was a perfectly comfortable place to inhabit.

  ‘Something is happening out there, Rumpole. There's no reason why this flat shouldn't be part of it.’

  ‘Something? You mean some sort of demonstration? You want our flat to leave home and join in?’ I might have said that but, no doubt wisely, I thought better of it. ‘I've got to get to work,’ I told her.

  ‘That's your answer to everything, isn't it, Rumpole? Work. It stops you thinking about how we're going to keep up with the times.’

  As usual, I thought, as I embarked on the journey from Gloucester Road Tube station, which had become about as complex and unpredictable as the Road to Mandalay, Hilda was perfectly right.

  Among the refugees from Afghanistan was Doctor Mohammed Nabi, trained and qualified during happier moments in the history of his country. When a new regime took over he had paid a large sum for his trip in the chutney wagon. Having sold all he possessed and borrowed a thousand dollars from relatives and well-wishers, he found his country as easy to escape from as England was hard to get into.

  After his emergence from the crate, the lengthy process began. The Doctor and his companions were sent to a vacant council house on the outskirts of a town in Kent, where he was given vouchers to buy a minimum amount of food. There he was allowed ten days to fill in a nineteen-page form in English. The form was sent off to the Home Office, who undertook to give no answer unless it was a rejection. In due course the rejection arrived. This refusal led me into a hitherto unknown field and to invest in a slim publication, designed for students, called All You Need to Know about Immigration Law.

  ‘Civil Rights. Freedom of the Individual. Defeat for the Forces of Darkness. That's what you stand for, don't you, Mr Rumpole?’

  Mr Minter, ‘Call me Ted’, was a large, untidy, perpetually smiling man with the look of an astute rabbit. His upper lip a little raised, he spoke with a slight lisp. He was, he told me, ‘Old Labour' so far as his political beliefs went, which meant that he had an unfashionable faith in such concepts as the Rights of Man. He carried on a practice outside Canterbury, and undertook Legal-Aid cases for those in flight from foreign tyrannies. He carried a bulging briefcase and had two holes in the sweater he wore under a crumpled tweed suit.

  ‘I'm a newcomer to this branch of the law,’ I told him. ‘What on earth made you choose me?’

  ‘We knew you'd have the right attitude, Mr Rumpole. Men like the good Doctor come here and everyone's against them. The government, the opposition, most of the public and the newspapers. You speak up for them.’

  ‘Only to my wife, I had to tell him, and perhaps that was only for the entirely legitimate purpose of starting an argument. ‘I have to confess I never did one of these difficult cases.’

  ‘But you've won enough difficult cases, Mr Rumpole, we know that.’

  ‘We? Who's we?’

  ‘Well, I know and the client does.’

  ‘You mean this Doctor Nabi?’

  Ted made a quick search of his briefcase, as though unsure which of his many customers we were concerned with, pulled out a sheet of paper and looked at it with some relief. ‘That's the one! I have his notes here. He asked for you specifically. Your fame has gone before you, Mr Rumpole.’

  In my imagination I crossed the snows of high mountains to swoop down on a crowded market square, loud with the squawk of chickens and the braying of donkeys, filled with brown-eyed men in turbans whispering to each other, ‘If you're ever in trouble, send for Rumpole!’

  ‘My fame – even in Afghanistan?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Likeable fellow, this Doctor, is he?’ I had already formed a favourable opinion of the man.

  ‘I don't know.’

  ‘You don't?’

  ‘The
fact is,’ Ted the solicitor looked embarrassed, ‘I've never seen him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It seems he's afraid of something, or someone. He says his life's threatened – I'm not sure who by exactly. I get my instructions through a friend.’

  ‘A friend of yours?’

  ‘A friend of his. Another Afghan called Jamil. He seems to be a sort of social worker who gives advice to asylum seekers. He helps them fill in their forms. He does all that for the Doctor.’

  ‘And the Doctor doesn't speak to you?’

  ‘I'm not quite clear why. Jamil says he's in a state of depression since his application was turned down. He needs all our help, Mr Rumpole…’

  ‘I'll have to see him before the hearing.’ I was now becoming impatient with this arm's-length client, apparently determined to keep his distance.

  ‘Oh, you will see him. You'll certainly see him. Meanwhile…’ Ted dug into his briefcase and brought up a great wodge of paper, flimsy copies of forms filled in, formal rejections and tales of a political regime that beggared belief.

  ‘They all say you're a legend in your lifetime, Rumpole. Your fame's spread far and wide.’

  The man who paid me this apparent compliment was small, dressed in a dapper suit, with shoes so brightly polished you might see your face in them. He had light-brown hair, which stood up on either side of a bald patch, and the face of an immoderately self-satisfied Pekinese. Did I detect in his elaborate compliment a note of sarcasm? If so, I ignored it and gave him the facts.

  ‘I am quite well known, it seems,’ I said, ‘in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Isn't that where they make you grow beards, Rumpole? I say, wouldn't Rumpole look splendid with a bloody great beard down to his navel? Don't you all think Rumpole would make a splendid Ayatollah?’

  This man had been introduced to me as Archie Prosser, known, Erskine-Brown told me, as the ‘Boy Wonder' at Winchester. He had a good mixed practice, Claude also said, and was looking for new Chambers. As Archie spoke, he gave a little wriggle of delight, deeply enjoying his own jokes. In my opinion, they weren't worth the wriggle, although they were greeted with loud laughter by the assembled company in Pommeroy's Wine Bar. Claude was there, of course, and Mizz Liz Probert and Hoskins, who laughed so immoderately at the idea of a bearded Rumpole that his usual anxiety about the expense of rearing his daughters seemed forgotten.

  Ballard, who since his revelation as the one-time Bonzo, lead singer of the Pithead Stompers, had taken to joining the tenantry in Pommeroy's, where he sat smiling and indulging himself in a potent mixture of orange juice and lemonade, also laughed heartily.

  ‘It's got nothing to do with beards.’ I was, I confess, rather short with them all. ‘It's an Afghan doctor, who chose me to represent him.’

  ‘What's he done? Medical negligence or indecent assault?’

  ‘Neither. He just wants to live in England. Eccentric of him, you may say, but that's what he wants.’

  ‘They come here, Archie Prosser looked serious, ‘because we're an easy touch.’

  ‘Not all that easy. He's had all his applications refused so far.’

  ‘Quite right.’ Prosser's Pekinese face took on an expression of high judicial authority. ‘These people need cracking down on.’

  ‘Cracking down?’ I felt strongly on this subject. ‘We always seem to be cracking down on everyone – one-parent families, lawyers, windscreen washers, refugees and those who like an occasional small cheroot!’ Here I flattened Bonzo Ballard with a stare. ‘Why don't we try cracking up something for a change, such as the great British tradition of welcoming political refugees?’

  Unlike the Boy Wonder's jokes, this speech was greeted with an embarrassed silence by the assembled members of 1 Equity Court. They appeared to cheer up slightly when the entertaining Archie said, ‘I heard about your smoking habit, Rumpole. I heard you rather enjoy standing out of doors chatting up the secretaries in all sorts of weather.’

  When the totally uncalled-for, and I thought somewhat forced, laughter subsided, Ballard, proving that ‘Soapy Sam' was, indeed, an apt description, said, ‘I'm so glad we brought you two together, Rumpole. I knew you'd find Prosser a kindred spirit, and a great asset to Chambers.' It was a statement which I thought called for a firm ‘No comment.’

  ‘It'll be a joy to share with Rumpole, well known as the Chambers wit and the joker in the pack. Come to think of it,’ the Boy Wonder stared at me and gave a little preparatory wriggle before what he clearly considered would be a sure-fire hit, ‘you haven't said anything funny the whole evening.’

  When troubles come, they come not single spies, or even single asylum seekers. Finding that the company in Pommeroy's seriously detracted from the pleasure of the Château Thames Embankment, I arrived home early to find the usually quiet and uneventful flat in Froxbury Mansions positively buzzing with activity. Hilda was not alone, but in the company of a couple who looked, at first sight, inexplicable. They were not people she could possibly have been at school with, or even met at bridge. For a moment, I thought they must be refugees come to consult me owing to my spreading fame in such cases. Were they perhaps young members of a resistance group subject to persecution, and perhaps torture, in their native land? They looked pale and deeply serious, with the manner of fervent believers in some cause, and the young man, his head shaven to premature baldness, wore the trousers of some military force with huge pockets at the knees, perhaps for the storing of hand grenades. Above them, he wore a puffed-up waistcoat which might be useful for keeping afloat after your plane ditched in the water. The girl, who had long, straight hair and small spectacles, clearly had some trouble securing her jeans – the top fly-buttons were undone, causing them to slip below her hips exposing the dingy tops of a pair of knickers and an expanse of pale stomach before the advent of a faded T-shirt which bore the legend ACTIV8 YOURSELF. The message seemed to have gone unattended because she stood leaning against a wall, her glasses on the end of her nose and her eyes closed in evident exhaustion, while her male companion was busy with a metal tape, apparently measuring us up. As I stood looking at the couple with wild surmise, the young man asked me if I'd mind shifting so he could measure the distance from the door to the gas fire.

  ‘There's plenty of room,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘for the talk pit.’

  ‘When we take away the gas fire and those absolutely ghastly tiles, and the mantelpiece, of course, we're going to make this the “Relationship Area”.’ The girl unexpectedly spoke, and then refreshed herself from the large, plastic bottle of mineral water she carried with her.

  ‘Hilda!’ I heard in my voice bewilderment turning to desperation. ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘Mark and Sue,’ she started to explain. ‘From the television.’

  ‘Surely we don't have to move the gas fire and the mantelpiece to accommodate the television. I mean, the television's there, on its stand, where it's always been. It doesn't take up much room.’

  ‘Rumpole. Sue and Mark are from Make Over. We've been chosen as a London flat to be made over.’

  ‘A gone-to-seed, deeply worn-out London flat.’ Mark spoke with missionary enthusiasm. ‘We're here to liberate it! To give it new life. To let it breathe, for once!’

  ‘I'm not sure our flat is noticeably short of breath.’

  ‘Aren't you? Well, just tell us – how's your relationship?’ He looked from one to the other of us. The girl moved away from the wall, her eyes open. It was a question clearly of deep interest to both of them. Neither of us answered it.

  Instead Hilda said, ‘They're going to give us a talk pit.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It's a space you sit in. A sort of hole. Quite comfortable.’

  ‘Like a grave?’ I couldn't help myself.

  ‘Sitting below floor level,’ Mark explained, ‘you'll find yourselves saying things to each other you never thought of saying before.’

  ‘I should think we might. But you can't dig a hole in the midd
le of our sitting-room. You'd crash through Colonel Daventry's ceiling in number 31A and he'd be extremely angry.’

  ‘No problems,’ Mark said. ‘Pas de probs.’ To which he added, ‘We're simply going to raise your floor three feet.

  ‘We'll knock through that door and include the passage.’

  ‘Get rid of all those horrible dangling lights and have lava lamps.’

  ‘And as this is the Relationship Zone, we'll have shelves behind the talk pit to put the crystals on.’

  ‘Crystals?’ I was doing my best to keep up with the plans for our matrimonial home.

  ‘We'll place a large crystal directly facing the talk pit,’ Sue explained to me as though to a child, ‘so it can really help with your relationship.’

  The mind boggled at the idea of my long, sometimes stormy attachment to She Who Must Be Obeyed being seriously affected by a lump of glittering rock.

  ‘We thought the walls dead white. Just blank pages, really. For your thoughts.’

  ‘With lights so you can change wall colour according to your mood.’

  ‘We find most couples turn on yellow for happiness and accord.’

  ‘Scarlet for passion.’

  And black, I thought, for complete matrimonial incompatibility. My reverie was interrupted by Hilda's curt ‘Why don't you go into the kitchen, Rumpole, and read your Evening Standard, so Sue and Mark can get on with their job?’

  As I left, I heard them discussing see-through storage drawers, so you could always see your underclothes.

  Much later, Hilda joined me in the kitchen. ‘What the hell,’ I asked her, ‘are lava lamps?’

  ‘Beautiful things, Rumpole. Sort of tubes of light with bubbles running up and down. Like the stuff that comes out of volcanoes.’

  ‘Lava?’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘All this redecoration,’ I did my best to sound reasonable and keep the panic out of my voice, ‘is out of the question. It'd cost us a fortune!’