John Mortimer - Rumpole 1 - Rumpole of The Bailey

by Rumpole of The Bailey(lit)

  'Chattering to that idiot George Frobisher! I really don't know why you bother to come home at all. Now Nick's gone it seems quite unnecessary.' 'Nick?' It was a year since Nick had gone to America and we hadn't had a letter since Christmas.

  'You know what I mean! We used to be a family. We had to try at least, for Nick's sake. Oh, why don't you go to work?' 'Nick'll be back.' I moved from the table and put an arm on her shoulder. She shook it off.

  'Do you believe that? When he's got married? When he's got his job at the University of Baltimore? Why on earth should he want to come back to Gloucester Road?' 'He'll want to come back sometime. To see us. He'll want to hear all our news. What I've been doing in Court,' I said, giving Hilda her opening.

  'What you've been doing in Court? You haven't been doing anything in Court apparently!' At which moment the phone rang in our living-room and Hilda, who loves activity, dashed to answer it. I heard her telling the most appalling lies through the open door.

  'No, it's Mrs Rumpole. I'll see if I can catch him. He's just rushing out of the door on his way to work.' I joined her in my dressing gown; it was my new clerk, the energetic Henry. He wanted me to come into Chambers for a conference, and I asked him if the world had come to its senses and crime was back in its proper place in society. No, he told me, as a matter of fact it wasn't crime at all.

  'You haven't even shaved!' Hilda rebuked me. 'Daddy'd never have spoken to his clerk on the telephone before he'd had a shave!' I put down the telephone and gave Mrs Rumpole a look which I hoped was enigmatic.' It's a divorce,' I told her.

  As I walked through the Temple, puffing a small cigar on the way to the factory, I considered the question of divorce. Well, you've got to take what you can nowadays, and I suppose divorce is in a fairly healthy state. Divorce figures are rising. What's harder to understand is the enormous popularity of marriage! I remembered the scene at breakfast that morning, and I really began to wonder how marriage ever became so popular. I mean, was it 'Home Life' with She Who Must Be Obeyed? Gloucester Road seemed to be my place of work, of hard, back-breaking toil. It was a relief to get down to the Temple, for relaxation. By that time I had reached my Chambers, No. i Equity Court, a place of peace and quiet. It felt like home.

  When I got into the hallway I opened the door of the clerk's room, and was greeted by an extraordinary sight. A small boy, I judged him to be about ten years old, was seated on a chair beside Dianne our typist. He was holding a large, lit-up model of a jet aeroplane and zooming it through the air at a noise level which would have been quite unacceptable to the New York Port authority.

  I shut the door and beat a hasty retreat to the privacy of my sanctum. But when I opened my own door I was astounded to see a youngish female seated in my chair, wearing horn-rimmed specs and apparently interviewing a respectable middle-aged lady and a man who gave every appearance of being an instructing solicitor. I shut that door also and turned to find the zealous Henry crossing the hall towards me, bearing the most welcome object in my small world, a brief.

  ' Henry,' I said in some panic.' There's a woman, seated in my chair!' 'Miss Phyllida Trant, sir. She's been with us for the last few months. Ex-pupil of Mr Erskine-Brown. You haven't met her?' I searched my memory. 'I've met the occasional whiff of French perfume on the stairs.' ' Miss Trant's anxious to widen her experience.' ' Hence the French perfume?' ' She wants to know if she could sit in on your divorce case.

  I've got the brief here. "Thripp v. Thripp." You're the wife, Mr Rumpole.' 'Am I? Jolly good." I took the brief and life improved considerably at the sight of the figure written on it. 'Marked a hundred and fifty guineas! These Thripps are the sort to breed from! Oh, and I don't know if you're aware of this, Henry. There seems to be a child in the clerk's room, with an aeroplane !' ' He's here for the conference.' I didn't follow his drift. 'What's the child done? It doesn't want a divorce too ?' 'It's the child of the family in "Thripp v. Thripp", Henry explained patiently, 'and I rather gather the chief bone of contention. So long now, Mr Rumpole.' He moved away towards the clerk's room.' Sorry to have interrupted your day at home.' 'You can interrupt my day at home any time you like, for a brief marked a hundred and fifty guineas! Miss Phyllida Trant, did you say?' ' Yes sir. You don't mind her sitting in, do you ?' 'Couldn't you put her off, Henry? Tell her a divorce case is sacrosanct. It'd be like a priest inviting a few lady friends to join in the confessional.' ' I told her you'd have no objection. Miss Trant's very keen to practise.' 'Then couldn't she practise at home?' 'We're about the only Chambers without a woman, Mr Rum-pole. It's not good for our image.' He seemed determined, so I gave him a final thought on my way into the conference. 'Our old clerk Albert never wanted a woman in Chambers. He said there wasn't the lavatory accommodation.' So there I was at the desk having a conference in a divorce case with Miss Phyllida Trant 'sitting in', Mr Perfect the solicitor looking grave, and the client, Mrs Thripp, leaning forward and regarding me with gentle trusting eyes. As I say, she seemed an extremely nice and respectable woman, and I wasn't to know that she was to cause me more trouble than all the murderers I have ever defended.

  'As soon as you came into the room I felt safe somehow, Mr Rumpole. I knew Norman and I would be safe with you.' 'Norman?' ' The child of the family.' Miss Trant supplied the information.

  'Thank you. Miss Trant. The little aviator in the clerk's room. Quite. But if I'm to help you, you'll have to do your best to help me too.' 'Anything! What is it you want exactly?' Mrs Thripp seemed entirely co-operative.

  'Well, dear lady, a couple of black eyes would come in extremely handy,' I said hopefully. Mrs Thripp looked at Miss Trant, puzzled.

  'Mr Rumpole means, has your husband ever used physical violence?' Miss Trant explained.

  'Well, no... Not actual violence.' 'Pity.' I commiserated with her. 'Mr Thripp doesn't show a very helpful attitude. You see, if we're going to prove "cruelty"...' ' We don't have to, do we?' I noticed then that Miss Trant was sitting in front of a pile of legal text books. 'Intolerable conduct. Since the Divorce Law Reform Act 1969.' I thought then that it's not the frivolity that makes women intolerable, it's the ghastly enthusiasm, the mustard keeness to get into the lacrosse team, the relentless drive to learn the Divorce Law Reform Act by heart: that and the French perfume. I could have managed that conference quite nicely without Miss Trant. I said to her, however, as politely as possible, 'The Divorce Law Reform Act, which year did you say ?' '1969-' ' Yes,' I smiled at Mrs Thripp.' Well, you know how it is. Go down the Old Bailey five minutes and you've found they've passed another Divorce Reform Act. Thank you, Miss Trant, for reminding me. Now then what's this intolerable conduct, exactly?' 'He doesn't speak,' Mrs Thripp told me.

  'Well, a little silence can come as something of a relief. In the wear and tear of married life.' ' I don't think you understand,' Mrs Thripp smiled patiently. 'He hasn't spoken a word to me for three years.' 'Three years? Good God! How does he communicate?' The instructing solicitor laid a number of little bits of paper on my desk.

  ' By means of notes.' I then discovered that the man Thripp, who I was not in the least surprised to learn was a chartered accountant, used his matrimonial home as a sort of Post Office. When he wished to communicate with his wife he typed out brusque and businesslike notes, documents which threw a blinding light, in my opinion, on the man's character.

  'To my so-called wife,' one note read, 'if you and your so-called son want to swim in hot water you can go to the Public Baths. From your so-called husband.' This was fixed, it seemed, to a padlocked geyser. Another billet doux was found in the biscuit tin in the larder, 'To my so-called wife. I have removed what you left of the assorted tea biscuits to the office for safe keeping. Are you determined to eat me into bankruptcy? Your so-called husband.' 'To my so-called wife. I'm going out to my Masonic Ladies Night tomorrow (Wednesday). It's a pity I haven't got a lady to take with me. Don't bother to wait up for me. Your so-called husband, F. Thripp.' I made two observations about this correspondence, one was that
it revealed a depth of human misery which no reasonable woman would tolerate, and the other was that all the accountant Thripp's notes were written on an Italian portable, about ten years old.

  'My husband's got an old Olivetti. He can't really type/ Mrs Thripp told me.

  Many years ago I scored a notable victory in the' Great Brighton Benefit Club Forgery' case, and it was during those proceedings I acquired my vast knowledge of typewriters. Having solved the question of the type, however, got me no nearer the heart of the mystery.

  'Let me understand,' I said to Mrs Thripp. 'Are you interested in someone else?' ' Someone else?' Mrs Thripp looked pained.

  'You're clearly an intelligent, obviously still a reasonably attractive woman.' 'Thank you, Mr Rumpole,' Mrs Thripp smiled modestly.

  'Are there not other fish in your particular sea ?' ' One man's quite enough for me, thank you.' ' I see. Apparently you're still living with your husband.' 'Living with him? Of course I'm living with him., The flat's in our joint names.' Mrs Thripp said this as though it explained everything. I was still bewildered.

  'Wouldn't you, and the young hopeful outside, be better off somewhere else? Anywhere else?' 'There's your mother in Ruislip.' Mr Perfect supplied the information.

  "Thank you Mr Perfect.' I turned back to Mrs Thripp. 'As your solicitor points out. Anyone's mother in Ruislip must surely be better than life with a chartered accountant who locks up the geyser! And removes the tea biscuits to his office.' 'I move out?' Apparently the thought had never occurred to her.

  ' Unless you're a glutton for punishment.' ' Move out? And let him get away with it?' I rose to my feet, and tried to put the point more clearly. 'Your flat in Muswell Hill, scene of historic events though it may well be, is not the field of Waterloo, Mrs Thripp, if you withdraw to happier pastures there would be no defeat, no national disaster.' 'Mrs Thripp is anxious about the furniture,' Mr Perfect offered an explanation.

  "The furniture?' ' She's afraid her husband would dispose of the lounge suite if she left the flat.' 'How much human suffering can be extracted by a lounge suite?' I asked the rhetorical question. 'I can't believe it's the furniture.' There was a brief silence and then Mrs Thripp asked quietly, ' Won't you take me on, Mr Rumpole ?' I thought of the rent and the enormous amounts of money She Who Must Be Obeyed spends on luxuries like Vim. I also remembered the fact that crime seemed remarkably thin on the ground and said T, 'Of course, dear lady. Of course I'll take you on! That's what I'm here for. Like an old taxi cab waiting in the rank. Been waiting quite a little time, if you want to know the truth. You snap your fingers and I'll drive you almost anywhere you want to go. Only it'd be a help if we knew exactly what destination you had in mind.' ' I've told Mr Perfect what I want.' 'You want a divorce. Those are my instructions,' Mr Perfect told me, but his client put it a little differently. ' I want my husband taken to Court. Those are my instructions, Mr Rumpole.' I have spoken in these reminiscences of my old friend George Frobisher. George is a bachelor who has lived in an hotel in Kensington since his sister died. He is a gentle soul, unfitted by temperament for a knock-about career at the Bar, but he is a pleasant companion for a drink at Pommeroy's after the heat and labour of the day. That evening I bought the first round, two large clarets, flushed with the remunerative collapse of the Thripp marriage.

  'Things are looking up, George,' I raised my glass to my old friend and he, in turn, toasted me.

  'A little.' 'There's light at the end of the tunnel. Today I got a hundred and fifty pound brief. For a divorce.' 'That's funny. So did I.' George sounded puzzled.

  ' Sure to last at least six days. Six refreshers at fifty pounds a day. Think of that, George! Well, there's that much to be said. For the institution of marriage?' 'I never felt the need of marriage somehow,' George told me.

  ' With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous deadly foe. The longest and the dreariest journey go' I gave George a snatch of Shelley and a refill.

  ' I've had a bit of an insight into marriage. Since reading that divorce brief.' George was in a thoughtful mood.

  ' If we were married we couldn't sit pleasantly together,' I told him. 'You'd be worrying what time I got home. And when I did get home you wouldn't be pleased to see me!' ' I really can't see why a person puts up with marriage,' George went on.' When a woman starts conversing with her husband by means of little notes!' I looked at him curiously.' Got one of those, have you?' There seemed to be an epidemic of matrimonial note-leaving.

  'And she cut the ends off his trousers.' George seemed deeply shocked.

  'Sounds a sordid sort of case. Cheers!' We refreshed ourselves with Pommeroy's claret and George went on to tell me about his divorce.

  'He was going to an evening at his Lodge. You know what this Jezebel did? Only snipped off the ends of his evening trousers. With nail scissors.' 'Intolerable conduct that, you know. Under the 1969 Act.' I kept George abreast of the law.

  ' Moss Bros was closed. The wretched fellow had to turn up at the Caf6 Royal with bags that looked as if they'd been gnawed by rats. Well! That's marriage for you. Thank God I live by myself, in the Royal Borough Hotel.' ' Snug as a bug in there, are you George?' 'We have television in the Residents Lounge now. Coloured television. Look here, you must dine with me there one night, Rumpole. Bring Hilda if you'd care to.' ' We'd like to George. Coloured television? Well, I say. That'll be a treat.' ' Quiet life, of course. But the point of it is. A man can keep his trousers more or less safe from destruction in the Royal Borough Hotel.' I must admit that George Frobisher and I loitered a little in Pommeroy's that night and, when I got home, Hilda had apparently gone up to bed; she often had an early night with a glass of milk and a library book. I went into the kitchen and switched on the light. All was quiet on the Western front, but I saw it on the table, a note from my lady wife.

  'If you condescend to come home, your dinner's in the oven.' I took the hint and was removing a red-hot plate of congealed stew from the bowels of our ancient cooker when the telephone rang in the living-room. I went to answer it and heard a woman's voice.

  ' I just had to ring you. I feel so alone in the world, so terribly lonely.' 'Look it's not terribly convenient. Just now.' It was my client in the case of Thripp v. Thripp.

  'Don't say that! It's my life. How can you say it's not convenient?' 'All right. A quick word.' I supposed the ancient stew could wait a little longer.

  'He's going to say the most terrible things about me. I've got to see you.' 'Shall we say tomorrow, four o'clock. But not here!' I told her firmly.

  ' I don't know how I can wait.' 'You've waited for three years haven't you? Look forward to seeing you then. Goodnight now, beloved lady." I said that, I suppose, to cheer up Mrs Thripp and to soften the blow as I put down the receiver. Just before I did so I heard a little click, and remembered that Hilda had insisted on an extension in our bedroom.

  The next day our clerk's room was buzzing. Henry was on the telephone dispatching barristers to far-flung Magistrates Courts. That smooth young barrister, Erskine-Brown was opening his post and collecting papers, and Uncle Tom, old T. C. Rowley, was starting his day of leisure in Chambers by standing by the mantelpiece and greeting the workers. The ops room was even graced by the presence of our Head of Chambers, GuthrieFeath-erstone, Q.c. M.P., who was taking time off from such vital affair's of state as the Poultry Marketing Act to supervise Dianne who was beating out one of his learned opinions on our old standard Imperial.

  Henry told me that my divorce conference was waiting in my room, and Erskine-Brown gave his most condescending smile. 'Divorcing now, Rumpole?' he asked me. I told him I was and asked him if he was still foreclosing on mortgages. 'I'm all for a bit of divorce in Chambers,' Featherstone smiled tolerantly. ' Widens our repertoire. You were getting into a bit of a rut with all that crime. Horace.' ' Crime! It seems a better world. A cleaner world. Down at the Old Bailey,' I told him.

  'Don't you find criminal clients a little ~ depressing?' 'Criminal clients? They behave so well.' 'Really
Rumpole?' Erskine-Brown sounded quite shocked.

  'What do they do?' I asked him. 'Knock people on the head, rob banks, cause, at the worst, a temporary inconvenience. They don't converse by means of notes. They don't lock up the geyser. They don't indulge in three years silence to celebrate the passage of love.' 'Love? Have you become an expert on that, Rumpole?' Erskine-Brown seemed amused. 'Rumpole in Love. Should sell a bomb at the Solicitors Law Stationers.' 'And I'll tell you another great advantage of criminal customers," I went on. 'They're locked up, mostly, pending trial! They can't ring you up at all hours of the day and night. Now you get involved in a divorce and your life's taken over!' "We used to have all the facts of divorce cases printed out in detail in The Times,' Uncle Tom remembered.

  ' Oh, hello, Uncle Tom.' ' It used to make amusing reading! Better than all this rubbish they print now, about the Common Market. Far more entertaining.' Erskine-Brown left to go about his business, not before I had told him that divorce, for all its drawbacks, was a great deal less sordid than foreclosing on mortgages and then Henry presented me with another brief, a mere twenty-five guineas this time, to be heard by old Archie McFee, the Dock Street magistrate.