Rumpole at Christmas

by John Mortimer

  ‘I can’t stand those small cigars you puff at, Rumpole,’ she said after one fairly quiet evening in Froxbury Mansions. ‘The government doesn’t like it and I don’t like it either!’

  ‘The government should mind its own business,’ I told her. ‘And you know I’ve always smoked a smallish cigar after dinner.’

  ‘And after lunch. And after tea.’

  ‘And when I’m thinking about a difficult decision in a murder trial.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll smoke some on Christmas Day?’

  ‘Particularly on Christmas Day.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ She Who Must had clearly made up her mind. ‘I shall spend Christmas with Dodo Mackintosh in Cornwall.’

  I thought this an empty threat at the time, but when I came back from the Old Bailey the next day, she had gone for Christmas in Cornwall with her old school friend.

  ‘Hilda has a bad cold,’ I told Soapy Sam – no man likes to admit to being deserted.

  Soapy Sam wandered off and the usually love-sick Claude Erskine-Brown came up to me. He looked sadly across the room at the beautiful Dot with the jewel in her nose. ‘I told her our love could never be. I’ve broken her heart of course, poor girl. Sometimes, Rumpole, I regret I’m married to a judge.’

  I looked across the room and saw Dot who was, with apparent enthusiasm, kissing our clerk Henry under the mistletoe. And then, to my surprise, I saw my wife Hilda enter dressed for the party.

  ‘I thought you had a cold, Hilda? Rumpole told me that.’ Soapy Sam greeted her.

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! Rumpole doesn’t know what he’s talking about! There you are, Rumpole!’ And she strode towards me.

  ‘I thought you were spending Christmas with your old friend Dodo Mackintosh,’ I told her.

  ‘Dodo Mackintosh!’ To my surprise Hilda repeated the name of her best friend with something like contempt. ‘She’s taken leave of her senses!’

  ‘She’s ill?’

  ‘Worse than that! She’s taken up the Perkins diet.’

  ‘Whatever’s that?’

  ‘No meat, no sweets, no potatoes. Just raw vegetables and nuts. Nuts! Can you imagine that, Rumpole? That was what Dodo was planning for Christmas dinner. Nuts and raw carrots washed down with water!’

  ‘You couldn’t take that?’

  ‘Certainly not. That’s not at all my idea of Christmas. We have a proper Christmas dinner, don’t we, Rumpole?’

  ‘Indeed we do.’

  After the ritual exchange of presents, socks or tie for me, lavender water for Hilda, we always ate enough to ensure a gentle snooze during the broadcast by Her Majesty the Queen.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back, Hilda,’ I told her and felt for a small cigar. All I could find was an empty pocket.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hilda said, ‘I bought you these.’

  What she produced, decorated with stars and Christmas robins, was a packet of small cigars, which she presented to me.

  ‘Thank you, Hilda,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Just a present,’ she said. ‘After all, it is Christmas.’

  Later we filled our glasses and various toasts were drunk, to the Queen, to our chambers at 4 Equity Court and to Soapy Sam our unlearned leader. At the end of it I filled my glass again.

  ‘I have one more toast,’ I said. ‘To the class of person who’ll keep us all in bread and butter and Pommeroy’s plonk. Without whom there’d be no barristers, no judges, no politicians and nothing much to put in our newspapers. If they stopped work we’d all be on the National Assistance or washing up in pubs. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you,’ and here I raised my glass to the assembled throng, ‘the criminals of England!’

  Most of them drank but I heard Soapy Sam say to Hilda, ‘Your husband is impossible, Mrs Rumpole. Do you think he’ll ever change?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he ever will.’ And she said this apparently without regrets.

  Rumpole and Father Christmas

  Christmas had come again. There was tinsel and a few battered Christmas cards in the screws’ room near the cells under the Old Bailey, you couldn’t call on a tobacconist’s for a packet of small cigars without being treated to a canned rendering of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ and, most unusually, our barristers’ chambers at 4 Equity Court in the Temple was full of children.

  The idea was Claude Erskine-Brown’s, the opera-loving barrister whose twins, Tristan and Isolde, were then no more than seven years old. There were another four or five youngish barristers in our chambers at the time, all of whom had produced offspring, and old Uncle Tom, our oldest member, had unexpectedly contributed a couple of grandchildren. Mizz Liz Probert, my one-time pupil, had a niece, and extra children were bussed in from friendly chambers. It all seemed, with the streamers and games and going home presents, designed to arouse in these infants an early interest in lawyers and the law.

  After much planning for the event, Claude had announced his final triumph to us at a chambers meeting. ‘I’ve had a bit of luck,’ he said. ‘I’ve managed to get Father Christmas for our children’s party.’

  ‘Oh, congratulations, Erskine-Brown,’ I said. ‘What did you do? Travel to reindeer-land and bring him back on the Eurostar?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rumpole. He’s a fellow who advertises in the Islington Gazette.’ Here he produced a crumpled copy of the paper in question and read aloud, ‘Add a genuine Ho! Ho! Ho! to your Christmas party! A genuine and convincing Santa Claus is now accepting bookings.’ He added, ‘It gives a phone number in Palmers Green.’

  ‘Very few reindeer in Palmers Green,’ I suggested, having thought the matter over.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Rumpole. He hasn’t got any reindeer.’

  ‘Hasn’t he? You do surprise me.’

  ‘This is a fellow who has what is apparently a genuine talent for playing the part. And I’ve managed to secure his services.’

  Candidates for the party grew fast. Judge Bullingham (aka ‘The Mad Bull’) called me into his room and asked if he could invite a couple of grandchildren. I consented, hoping that my generosity would dispose him towards keeping the Timson I was defending out of prison. Unfortunately, the spirit of peace and goodwill didn’t move The Mad Bull to give my client community service. And so it was that a week or so before the Great Day, David Timson went to prison on a charge of receiving a huge quantity of Christmas puddings, among other things.

  My wife, Hilda (known to me as She Who Must Be Obeyed), invited her old school friend Laura Pewsey (who had no fewer than three daughters – all of whom were looking forward to the treat of meeting Claude’s ‘genuine Santa’) down from Yorkshire to stay in our mansion flat.

  After a cold, bright day, darkness came early. As the gas lamps were being lit around the Temple, there was a ring at the door of our chambers. Our clerk, Henry, opened it to the ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ of a figure who looked so like everyone’s idea of Santa Claus that, perhaps after a glass or three of Château Thames Embankment, I might have believed the legend had come to life. He had exactly the right roundness of nose, his eye was bright and his flowing beard snowy white, and he carried a voluminous bag – no doubt full of presents and other surprises. After another burst of ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ he asked Henry if he might borrow our clerk’s room to ‘prepare a few surprises’. At the time it didn’t occur to me to wonder why Santa would know about clerks’ rooms in barristers’ chambers.

  The party assembled in the big room of our Head of Chambers, Sam Ballard, and there Father Christmas put on an excellent show. He conjured presents out of the air, told jokes, and persuaded the children to join him in a little song called ‘Does Santa Claus Sleep With his Whiskers Over or Under the Sheet?’ Finally he invited questions from his juvenile audience.

  The questions came thick and fast. Where did he put his reindeer when he came tonight? Did he really climb down chimneys? What did he do when he was young?

  It was then that he started a long story about being brought up by gnomes, a
nd as he conjured another present out of the air I noticed that half a finger was missing on his right hand. Suddenly the penny dropped and I saw another face behind the round red nose and the fake beard – a sharper, more eager and altogether greedier face. I put up my hand to ask a question.

  ‘What do you remember of the Enfield Post Office job? Must be about twenty years ago now.’

  ‘Post Office?’ Santa said in his Ho-ho-ish voice. ‘I must have stopped there to fill my sleigh with presents.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, and couldn’t help adding, ‘I’m sure you did.’

  ‘I don’t know why you asked him that ridiculous question,’ Hilda said after the party was over. She was going back with Laura to put the children to bed and she told me I’d have to look after myself until later.

  Accordingly I went to Pommeroy’s Wine Bar and thought about life with the help of a bottle of the old Château for a while, then went back to chambers. Around ten o’clock, I was surprised to hear a key turn in the front-door lock, followed by footsteps in the passageway. I waited for a minute and then emerged into the darkness and made for the clerk’s room, from which odd noises had started emerging.

  The lights were out but a lit torch lay on Henry’s desk. By its light I saw the bulky figure of Santa Claus rummaging in his sack. He then pulled out a wodge of cheques and cash and placed them in the open desk drawer that Henry always kept locked – a precaution which had apparently proved no obstacle to this ingenious Santa.

  ‘Fred Streeter,’ I said loudly as I switched on the light. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Putting your money back, Mr Rumpole,’ said the man I’d remembered as no more than a boy when he lost a finger breaking into the Enfield Post Office.

  ‘You stole from us?’

  ‘That was the idea, Mr Rumpole. You get lots of chances going into places as Father Christmas.’

  ‘What made you give it all back?’

  ‘Just I remember you was kind to me, Mr Rumpole. You said I was led astray by my older cousins, who was real professional blaggers. You got me the minimum. When I saw you today, I remembered how grateful I’d been. So I came to put the cheques and that back.’

  ‘Was that the reason? Just seeing me again after all these years?’

  ‘You weren’t like the other briefs I’d dealt with before – those that treated me like a piece of dirt. You seemed really to care about me.’

  ‘Not enough to put you off the thieving.’

  ‘Perhaps not. It was a bit more than seeing you, though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, all those kids were asking me questions about reindeers and all that… I suppose I started to feel a bit mean about what I’d really come for. I had all these red clothes on, and the beard and that, but I also had your clerk’s spare keys and all his cheques and petty cash in my bag. It hadn’t struck me that way before. But then, well, suddenly it didn’t seem right.’

  ‘You mean, the spirit of Christmas overcame you? You went for a little peace and goodwill towards men?’

  ‘Is that what it was?’ Father Christmas, otherwise known as Fred Streeter, looked puzzled.

  ‘Most probably.’

  ‘That sort of thing doesn’t usually get to me.’

  ‘Well, it seems it has.’

  ‘Mr Rumpole, why don’t you put that in your Christmas stocking?’ he said, handing me a folded slip of paper.

  I looked at what he had given me. It was a cheque made out to me – my fee for some long-since closed Timson case. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And a Happy Christmas to you.’

  ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ said Fred, back in his role as Santa, as he returned the money and the spare keys to Henry’s desk.

  *

  ‘I suppose you were drinking in that awful little wine bar of yours,’ Hilda said the next morning.

  ‘Yes,’ I had to admit. ‘I was in Pommeroy’s.’

  ‘Oh, Rumpole!’ Hilda said as she chased down one of Laura’s children who was storming round our flat. ‘When will you get in touch with the spirit of Christmas?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about the spirit of Christmas,’ I warned her. ‘I’ve seen it at work, and it’s extraordinary!’

  Rumpole and the Health Farm Murder

  Christmas comes but once a year, and it is usually preceded by Christmas cards kept in the prison officers’ cubby holes around the Old Bailey and ‘Away In A Manger’ bleating through Boots, where I purchase for my wife Hilda (known to me as She Who Must Be Obeyed) her ritual bottle of lavender water, which she puts away for later use, while she gives me another tie which I add to my collection of seldom-worn articles of clothing. After the turkey, plum pudding and a bottle or two of Pommeroy’s Château Thames Embankment I struggle to keep my eyes open during the Queen’s Speech.

  Nothing like this happened over the Christmas I am about to describe.

  Hilda broke the news to me halfway through December. ‘I have booked us in for four days over Christmas, Rumpole, at Minchingham Hall.’

  What, I wondered, was she talking about? Did She Who Must have relatives at this impressive-sounding address?

  I said, ‘I thought we’d spend this Christmas at home, as usual.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rumpole. Don’t you ever think about your health?’

  ‘Not really. I seem to function quite satisfactorily.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘Certainly. I can get up on my hind legs in court when the occasion demands. I can stand and cross-examine, or make a speech lasting an hour or two. I’ve never been too ill to do a good murder trial. Of course, I keep myself fortified by a wedge of veal and ham pie and a glass or two of Pommeroy’s Very Ordinary during the lunchtime adjournment.’

  ‘Slices of pie and red wine, Rumpole. How do you think that makes you feel?’

  ‘Completely satisfied. Until teatime, of course.’

  ‘Teatime?’

  ‘I might slip into the Tastee-Bite on Fleet Street for a cup of tea and a slice of Dundee cake.’

  ‘All that does is make you fat, Rumpole.’

  ‘You’re telling me I’m fat?’ The thought hadn’t really occurred to me, but on the whole it was a fair enough description.

  ‘You’re on the way to becoming obese,’ she added.

  ‘Is that a more serious way of saying I’m fat?’

  ‘It’s a very serious way of saying it. Why, the buttons fly off your waistcoat like bullets. And I don’t believe you could run to catch a bus.’

  ‘Not necessary. I go by Tube to the Temple Station.’

  ‘Let’s face it, Rumpole, you’re fat and you’re going to do something about it. Minchingham Hall is the place for you,’ she said, sounding more and more like an advert. ‘So restful, you’ll leave feeling marvellous. And now that you’ve finished the long fraud case…’

  ‘You mean,’ I thought I was beginning to see the light, ‘this Minchingham place is a hotel?’

  ‘A sort of hotel, yes.’

  Again I should have asked for further particulars, but it was time for the news so I merely said, ‘Well, I suppose it means you won’t have to cook at Christmas.’

  ‘No, I certainly won’t have to do that!’ Here She Who Must gave a small laugh, that I can only describe as merciless, and added, ‘Minchingham Hall is a health farm, Rumpole. They’ll make sure there’s less of you by the time you leave. I’ve still got a little of the money Auntie Dot left me in her will and I’m going to give you the best and the healthiest Christmas you’ve ever had.’

  ‘But I don’t need a healthy Christmas. I don’t feel ill.’

  ‘It’s not only your health, Rumpole. I was reading about it in a magazine at the hairdresser’s. Minchingham Hall specializes in spiritual healing. It can put you in touch with yourself.’

  ‘But I’ve met myself already.’

  ‘Your true self, Rumpole. That’s who you might find in “the restful tranquillity of Minchingham Hall”,’ she quoted from t
he magazine.

  I wondered about my true self. Had I ever met him? What would he turn out to be like? An ageing barrister who bored on about his old cases? I hoped not – and if that were all he was, I’d rather not meet him. And as for going to the health farm, ‘I’ll think it over,’ I told Hilda.

  ‘Don’t bother yourself, Rumpole,’ she said. ‘I’ve already thought.’

  ‘Tell me quite honestly, Mizz Probert,’ I said in the corridor in front of Number Six Court at the Old Bailey, ‘would you call me fat?’

  Mizz Liz, a young barrister and my pupil, was defending Colin Timson who, in a pub fight with a rival gang, the Molloys, was alleged to have broken a bottle and wounded Brian Molloy in the arm.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t call you that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ I gave her a grateful smile.

  ‘Not to your face, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be so rude,’ Mizz Liz Probert replied.

  ‘But behind my back?’

  ‘Oh, I might say it then.’

  ‘That I’m fat?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘But you’ve nothing against fat men?’

  ‘Well, nothing much, I suppose. But I wouldn’t want a fat boyfriend.’

  ‘You know what Julius Caesar said?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Let me have men about me that are fat; / Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights.’

  Mizz Probert looked slightly mystified, and as the prosecuting counsel, Soapy Sam Ballard QC, the Head of our Chambers, approached, I went on paraphrasing Julius Caesar. ‘Yond Ballard has a lean and hungry look; / He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.’

  As Ballard came up I approached him. ‘Look here, Ballard, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the Timson case,’ I said. ‘We all know the bottle broke and Brian Molloy fell on to it by accident. If we plead guilty to affray will you drop the grievous bodily harm?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘But surely, Ballard, you could be generous. In the spirit of Christmas?’

  ‘The spirit of Christmas has got nothing to do with your client fighting with a broken bottle.’