An Eligible Man

by Rosemary Friedman

  He called Laddie who was bounding away into the distance, disappearing almost over the horizon, leaving him alone on the vast expanse of West Yorkshire terrain. Stumbling over a pothole he swore an unaccustomed oath. He had a sudden longing for the rubbish strewn streets of London with their familiar smell of diesel, where you were not in danger of ricking your ankle every minute.

  “Oh God, Caroline!” he cried aloud to the panorama. “Why did you have to die?”

  In an attempt to keep himself out of Tina’s way while preparations for the evening were in progress, Topher took himself to a pub for lunch.

  By the time he got home with the inexhaustible Laddie, much of the sitting room furniture had been carried out to the garage and the house had been transformed. The formality of the arrangements – gilt chairs and the expanse of parquet flooring where the rugs had been removed – reminded Topher of the parties Caroline had once given, another world ago, in the Piano Room for Chelsea and Penge. A party in Bingley, it seemed, was exactly that. In London, as far as he could make out, the term now seemed to cover any gathering in which more than two people and a bottle were involved. Invitations, anticipating replies, were unheard of (as were even the most cursory gestures of gratitude) and more than one of these get-togethers might be, and habitually were, visited in the course of an evening. In view of the lack of specific declarations of intent, it puzzled Topher how people knew where that particular night’s action was to take place. Invariably they found their way to it. Tina had sent out jokey invitations (on which were depicted fizzing champagne glasses and coloured balloons) with enclosed reply cards.

  She knocked on Topher’s door as he lay resting on the bed with An End to Dying. Following Sally Maddox’s assault upon him, he had been expecting a novel in the modern idiom in which areas of the body were described in anatomical detail (reserved hitherto for medical textbooks) and the sex act awarded a diversity which defied the most liberal imagination. Instead he had found a well structured story in which the passion of the protagonists had been handled with both delicacy and wit.

  Tina was wearing a blue silk dressing-gown brought back by Miles from one of his many trips to Hong Kong.

  “May I come in?” she said when she was already in the room.

  Topher put down the book and removed his reading glasses.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t bring a suit,” he said. “I had no idea…”

  “I didn’t tell you.” Tina sat on the bed. “I thought you might not have come.”

  “Caroline always packed for both of us. Penge just…”

  “You’ll be fine in your sports jacket. Everyone’s looking forward to meeting my brother the judge.”

  “The pain fort et dur,” Topher said, recalling the Gordons’ dinner party. “I can’t stand everyone feeling sorry for me and not knowing where to look.”

  Tina took his hand.

  “I shan’t say anything about time being a healer.”

  “Haec olim meminisse invabit. Time heals all wounds.”

  “One just has to accept changes.”

  “I knew there would be no platitudes from you.”

  “One must be realistic. I think you’re doing jolly well. I just wish you lived nearer so that I could keep an eye on you. How are you getting on with the Sally Maddox?”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I thought you would be. Tell her how much I admire her, when you see her…”

  “I don’t suppose I shall be doing that.”

  “…and to keep writing.”

  Dressing for the party Topher realised that he was being deliberately slow. He brushed his teeth in the manner prescribed by the dental hygienist (a squeaky-clean young lady with an unbelievably wholesome mouth) and attended to his nails with the same meticulousness which had often driven Caroline to distraction. In Evelyn’s bathroom – the tub adorned with the grandchildren’s ducks and fishes – he stood shaving until his face was sore, and listened to the sound of the doorbell and the exchange of greetings from the hall. Back in the bedroom he selected a shirt and tie (without reassurance from Caroline as to their suitability) and polished his shoes with a dirty handkerchief and his glasses with a clean one. He straightened the duvet, putting Sally Maddox on the night table, from where he thought for a fraction of a second that she winked at him, and practised his smile in Evelyn’s mirror which pronounced it false. He needed a drink. That was the main problem. But in order to get it he must go downstairs. He buttoned his sports jacket over his stomach and lifting his chin made for the door.

  At the bottom of the stairs, before he could reach the bar, he was waylaid.

  “You must be the judge! We’ve heard ever so much about you from Tina, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Very proud of her brother, is Tina.”

  “My nephew is a lawyer in London. I don’t suppose you’ve come across him?”

  “Come to see how the other half live, have you?”

  “Tina told us about your wife passing away. We’d like to offer you our condolences.”

  “Play golf, do you?”

  “When your sister throws a party, you know it will be the best in Bingley.”

  “We’ve known Miles and Tina and the girls of course…how long is it now, Cyril?”

  “Tina must love having you up here. She won’t want to let you go.”

  “I had an Anty in Hampstead, Fern…something or was it Rose? I don’t suppose…no you wouldn’t really. Anyroad she moved to Canford Cliffs a while back.”

  Topher declined the champagne proffered on a silver tray by Paula, and made his way to the trestle table manned by her husband, a bull-necked barman in a white coat.

  He asked for whisky. Ahead of him a pin-thin woman in a yellow dress, with a diamond like a small cauliflower on her vermilion-tipped hand, was being served. When she turned round, holding a glass of wine, which was clearly not her first, it was impossible to ignore the fact that the dress, made of some shiny material and sequinned at the wrists, was slit almost to her navel.

  “You must be Topher. We’ve all been dying to meet you. I’m Lucille. I expect you’ve been warned about me. I’m looking for a husband to add to my collection.”

  “How many have you had?”

  “Including my own?”

  Topher accepted his whisky from the barman. Lucille held her glass to his.

  “It’s too boring. Tina – we play bridge – told me your wife had died. Let’s sit down and you can tell me about her.”

  They made their way to a pair of gilt chairs set at right angles to each other in a corner. Topher found himself in the bizarre situation of sitting next to a total stranger, trying to keep his eyes from her cleavage, while he explored in some depth his relationship with Caroline. He couldn’t think what had come over him. Against the hubbub of the room, assisted by the whisky, he treated the streaked-blonde Lucille, whose one gold-braceleted ankle swung nonchalantly against the other, to an only slightly expurgated version of their life together.

  “I honestly don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “I can’t keep a thing to myself…”

  Topher had been on the Bench long enough to know that she was lying.

  “…I don’t believe a word of it anyway.”

  “No?”

  “You’ve made it sound like a moonlit trip down the Grand Canal in a gondola. Anybody who’s ever been married could tell you that, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s hell on wheels.”

  “That being the case, why do you want another husband?”

  “Look at the alternatives, love! It’s not exactly a load of laughs being on your own.”

  Thinking about it later, Topher thought that she was wrong and that his marriage to Caroline had been like a moonlit trip down the Grand Canal in a gondola. He was unable to say as much to Lucille, however, because just at that moment silence was called for and Miles’ dentist son-in-law took the floor.

  Listening to the speech eulogising Miles
, Topher felt suddenly as isolated as he had on the Yorkshire moors. Lucille had left him to make her unsteady way to the bar. He stood up with everyone else and was surprised when the words of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” came from his own lips as if from the mouth of a stranger.

  Miles responded to the kind things said about him by his son-in-law. With patent sincerity he declared that any happiness he might feel on this day was due entirely to Tina. It was Tina who had given him his dear daughters, Evelyn and Jane – who in turn had presented him with his three grandchildren – Tina who had cared for him in sickness and in health, not to mention the times when he came home bad-tempered from the golf course (pause for laughter), Tina who was his sun and his moon and his stars. Looking round the room Topher met the cynical glance of Lucille as she drained her glass and turned back to the bar.

  By the time supper was served Topher was pleasantly drunk. He did not in the least mind explaining to the group of Miles’ friends, into the bosom of which he had carried his salmon coulibiac and his garlic bread, the difference between the Crown Court and the County Court, and the fact that it was a High Court – and not a Circuit – judge who went on circuit.

  Lucille collared him as he stood at the dessert table. The waitress asked if he would care for some sherry trifle. Lucille enquired whether he would like to go to bed with her. He said yes to the sherry trifle, and no to Lucille. He spent the rest of the evening defending the current sentencing procedure to a charming, but cynical, solicitor who felt strongly that too many lenient sentences were doled out by judges fearful of their chances of promotion.

  When all the guests and Paula, together with her Pantry, had departed, Miles and Tina carried out a post-mortem among the presents which had been left in the morning room. Molly Collins wasn’t looking at all well; Walter and Rachel Bosworth hadn’t been heard to say a civil word to each other all night; Harriet Middlebrook had over-indulged in the sherry trifle and had had to be taken home, and Frank from the golf club had been found in an alcoholic stupor in the best bedroom, flat out amongst the coats.

  As his sister and brother-in-law sat on the floor and exclaimed over the books on gardening, and the photograph frames, and the boxes of golf-balls, and the initialled handkerchiefs, Topher excused himself. The sight of their faces as they wished him goodnight testified to at least one moonlit trip down the Grand Canal. Lucille, in her yellow dress, with her cynicism, had been understating the case.

  Eight

  There were three postcards waiting from him from Sally Maddox. Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe: “Rang but no reply. Are you all right?” Odalisque with Tambourine (Matisse): “Presume you are away. Why didn’t you tell me?” and Picasso’s plump-thighed Grand Baigneuse, with a postmark from Ireland where Sally Maddox had gone to research her new novel. She didn’t say when she would be coming back. Topher felt rejected by her departure just when he had made up his mind to discuss An End to Dying with her.

  Tina had driven Topher to the station and seen him into his First Class seat. He was taking no chances on another Darren.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Topher said. “I feel quite human again.”

  “It’s getting away from The Smoke. It’s a wonder you aren’t all asphyxiated down there. Come and see us again. Miles loved having you around. We don’t need any notice.”

  Topher drew his twin sister to him.

  “Don’t be alone, love,” Tina said.

  With his mind on Sally Maddox and clutching her postcards, he had taken his suitcase upstairs and stopped at the threshold of his bedroom. Something was different. It took him a few moments to realise what it was. Caroline’s things had gone. Her Guide to Bird Seasons and her diary, her bird sketches and binoculars. Putting down the suitcase, Topher went slowly towards her wardrobe knowing what he would find. It wasn’t only the garments which were missing, the coats and cardigans which he would have been hard put to describe. Trying to be helpful, Chelsea and Penge had disposed not only of Caroline’s personal effects, but the last tangible vestiges Topher had of her. Dresses and blouses, imbued with her aura, which during the past months he had been known to hold to his face for comfort. Closing the cupboard with the gentle solemnity of an undertaker, Topher felt more bereaved than he had at the cremation. The coda of Caroline’s passing was more poignant than the actual song.

  He was startled by the telephone bell and guessed that it was Sally Maddox back from Ireland. It was Chelsea. Hoping he didn’t mind about the clothes. It had to be done. Oxfam had been delighted. Penge was in Germany, auditioning for a small part in a television play. How was Bingley?

  Abhorring the vacuum, Topher hung a few of his suits in Caroline’s cupboard to ease the congestion in his own. Feeling like a traitor, he put them back again. Only to transfer them a few minutes later with a stern admonishment to himself that he must now make a positive effort to come to grips with a life in which he was categorically on his own.

  By the time the new Law Sitting started there had been no word from Sally Maddox. He had grown accustomed to her postcards, of which he now had quite a collection, and was disappointed at their abrupt cessation. The mail, which he picked up eagerly from the mat every day, turned out to be nothing more than the daily ration of unsolicited letters, bills, and the odd note of condolence from the further reaches of his acquaintance to open up the wound.

  He spent one morning in Bond Street where he bought a Hermès scarf for Tina and a ship’s decanter from Asprey’s – a belated birthday present – for Miles. What remained of the Easter recess he passed closeted with his solicitor while they thrashed out the details of Caroline’s estate; catching up with his reading, walking – he missed Laddie and thought semi-seriously about getting a dog; debating the wisdom of dry-cleaning the loose covers in the drawing room with Madge; talking to Marcus; and taking his daughters out for dinner. Penge (who had not got the German TV part) insisted on a wholefood restaurant where they sat on hard chairs and ate from blue-glazed pottery bowls, Chelsea, who talked about little but her David, opted for the plusher comforts of the Gay Hussar.

  The first weeks of the new term he was sitting at Southwark. His splendid room in the Crown Court was a far cry from the utilitarian quarters of his County Court which were themselves luxurious compared with some of the disreputable facilities to be found on the northeastern circuit. The English judiciary was not well catered for. A visiting colleague on an American Judges Convention had been amazed to discover that, unlike his USA counterpart, the British judge was not only expected to work in some of the most antiquated accommodation in Europe, but was provided by Her Majesty with neither personal library, secretary, or legal assistant. Topher had to write his own letters and his judgements. He had to make do with the services of the éminence grise at his County Court, and Mr Squeers at Southwark. Squeers evoked a Dickens character in manner and appearance as well as name. Thankfully he made no attempt to mother Topher as did Mrs Sweetlove.

  As he walked with his rolled umbrella and his briefcase from the underground station, past the London Dungeon and the Cathedral, Topher thought how relieved he was to have something to fill the unoccupied corners of his mind. Although the criminal hearings – where apart from taking detailed notes he had to keep quiet most of the time – were less distracting than the civil cases, he was glad to be back at work.

  Outside the courts, contractors, busy with the remodelling of Hay’s Wharf, were mixing cement. Picking his way over the planks, Topher opened the door at the rear of the red-brick building. A security man, whom he had never seen before, sprang, like a uniformed Jack-in-the-box, out of his cubicle.

  “Judge Osgood,” Topher said.

  He could just as well have said Yasser Arafat.

  The security man touched his hat.

  Topher took the lift up to the third floor and walked along the corridor so thickly carpeted that it never failed to remind him of a superior hotel. Through the picture-window of his room he had a clear view across the Thames
of the new Lloyds building and the Port of London Authority. A carton of apple juice, a bottle of mineral water and the luncheon menu waited for him on his desk. He removed the copy of Private Eye from his brief-case, hung up his umbrella, and rang the bell for Squeers.

  Squeers, pudding-faced and obsequious in his black gown, wrung his hands and trusted that His Honour had had an enjoyable recess. He then imparted the unwelcome news that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to produce a police officer whose statement was a sine qua non of the first case.

  “Where is the police officer?” Topher asked.

  “According to the clerk of the court, Your Honour,” Squeers said, reminding Topher of nothing so much as a horse as he pawed the carpet with his feet, “counsel for the prosecution instructed the CPS last night that they must produce the witness at 9 o’clock this morning…”

  “It is now five minutes to ten!”

  “…unfortunately the CPS instructed Sergeant Bullock to come to court at 10.30.”

  Topher picked up the telephone on his desk.

  “This is Judge Osgood in Court Six. I want to speak to the person in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service. What do you mean, there’s no one available? There must be someone. Well, get Miss Walsh up here immediately!”

  While he waited impatiently for Miss Walsh, Topher studied the menu. In Southwark, luncheon was served formally in the Judges’ Dining Room. Judge Doughty-Smith, flanked by his sycophants, always took the high chair. Topher put neat ticks beside mushroom soup, fried fillet of plaice and chips, steamed swedes, and plum duff with custard, and handed the menu to Squeers.

  Miss Walsh, from the Crown Prosecution Service, knocked timidly at the door and came apprehensively into the room. She said she was unable to produce the missing police officer for the very good reason that it was her first day in the job and she knew nothing whatever about the case. When she had gone, looking as if she was about to burst into tears, Topher made a telephone complaint about the gross inefficiency and negligence of the Crown Prosecution Service. He dismissed the impotent Squeers with instructions to apologise to the jury, and settled down with Private Eye while he waited upon the pleasure of Sergeant Bullock.