An Eligible Man

by Rosemary Friedman

  Unnerved by his experience at Lowndes Square he wondered if the seemingly innocent invitation could possibly have a similar connotation. In view of the early hour he decided to take the risk.

  To his relief Sally Maddox was fully clothed, although her hair, surprisingly long and lustrous, was round her shoulders. She was wearing the dress with the poppies.

  “Will this do?” She held out the skirt.

  “That’s fine,” he said. And then, the words coming out involuntarily, “I liked you in that brown thing.”

  “I haven’t got a ‘brown thing’. I look ghastly in brown.”

  “The one you wore at April’s.” He could have bitten his tongue out.

  To his relief Sally laughed.

  “That was purple.”

  Topher remembered that he was colour-blind. Caroline had always told him so.

  He drank his coffee while Sally finished her toilette in the bathroom, from where she carried on a conversation.

  “How’s Pushkin?”

  Topher recited some verses, the Russian now flowing more easily from his tongue: “O rose maiden,/you fetter me;/But I am no more ashamed/To be fettered by you/Than is the nightingale king/Of woodland singers, ashamed/To live close-bound to the rose,/Tenderly singing songs for her/In the obscure voluptuous night.”

  He decided against translating.

  In the car Sally wrinkled her nose.

  “Arpège,” Topher said. Caroline had worn it. It was the only perfume he knew by name. “Chelsea uses buckets of it.”

  “Not on your nelly,” Sally said. “It’s Halston. You can smell it a mile off.”

  To cover the confusion of his lie, and deciding to take the bull by the horns, he said: “Talking of the Gordons…” Although they had not in fact been. Sally waited expectantly. Topher swallowed.

  “Why did you do what you did?”

  “What did I do?”

  “It was while the hors d’oeuvre was going round.” Topher, suddenly feeling very warm, prayed he would not be called upon to continue. “I was just about to pass the dish to April…”

  “Oh you mean this?”

  To his horror, Topher felt Sally’s firm hand between his thighs. He removed his own hand from the steering wheel.

  “Sally, please!”

  “You looked so utterly miserable. I was only trying to cheer you up. You do take things seriously, Christopher.”

  “Sometimes…” he said, driving with one hand only on the wheel by way of precaution, and thinking of Jo Henderson, “I’m inclined to think I don’t take them seriously enough.”

  Mrs Sweetlove, who was, Topher had noticed lately, taking more trouble with her appearance (today she was sporting white earrings like miniature door-knobs, white spectacle frames, and a lacy white jumper, with a little bow at the neck, beneath her gown) was waiting, with his apple juice, in his room.

  “This is Miss Maddox,” Topher introduced Sally. “I want you to look after her for me. Find her a seat in court. She will be staying for lunch.”

  Mrs Sweetlove looked at Sally as if she had at that moment been overtaken by the pangs of severe indigestion.

  “Very well, Your Honour.”

  Topher turned his attention to his guest.

  “These are my chambers. It is here that I change into my robes.”

  Sally Maddox took a micro cassette recorder from the depths of her capacious handbag.

  “Is it all right if I use this in court?”

  “Not unless you want me to send you to prison. Under section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, it is a contempt to tape-record proceedings. Put it away for goodness’ sake. I’ll tell you something about the case.”

  The case, adjourned from the previous week, concerned a development company which, under the terms of the Rent Act of 1977, was trying to get possession of a mansion flat in Maida Vale. The flat was let to a wine importer who had lived in it for twenty-one years. The development company, having bought the entire block for conversion, had offered the wine importer and his family alternative accommodation in North Finchley.

  At Friday’s hearing it had been established that the alternative accommodation was not exactly in North Finchley but in a sleazy backwater of Friern Barnet, and that the premises had yet to be converted.

  The development company based its case on the fact that the wine importer was not only the owner of a large, listed house in Oxfordshire, but that his alleged “family” (two grown-up daughters) had, in fact, long since left home.

  “I have to hear an ex parte first,” Topher told Sally, adjusting his robes. “A case of wife-beating.”

  “That sounds much more my cup of tea.”

  “I’m afraid that must be heard in chambers. It shouldn’t take very long. You can stay here if you like.”

  “I thought these were your chambers?”

  “Ah, the court as chambers. That is to say, privately.”

  “In that case I shall wander around, if I may.”

  Half-an-hour later, having disposed of the ex parte, Topher watched Sally Maddox, escorted by Mrs Sweetlove, take her seat in the front row of the public gallery. She took out her notebook and, to his horror, looked directly up at him and winked.

  Topher’s embarrassment at the gesture led to Mrs Sweetlove’s having to make frantic signs at him during his resumé of the possession case, to draw his attention to the fact that he was not wearing his wig, which he had removed for the ex parte. He retrieved it from the Bench, and raised a laugh in the court by apologising, with a twinkle in his eye, for his oversight.

  From the witness box, the wine importer appealed to Topher for the right to remain in the Maida Vale flat, on the grounds that a central London address was essential for his business activities, that he needed to be within walking distance of his aged and ailing parents, and that the alternative premises were unsuitable.

  Questioning his client about the said business activities, the wine importer’s counsel referred ad nauseam to the fact that wine purchased abroad, wholesale, must reside in bonded warehouses before it was distributed to shops in Central London, from which it was sold retail. Topher intervened to point out that he was fully aware of the difference between wholesale and retail, and there was no need to labour the point. Changing the subject, and hoisting his gown on to his shoulder with a gesture born of long years at the Bar, defending counsel went on to describe, in some detail, his client’s mother’s diabetes.

  “It is quite obvious, Your Honour, that this elderly lady is housebound…”

  “That is an inference I cannot accept.” Topher prided himself on his knowledge of medicine, most of which he had picked up from Marcus. Having made his point he made the mistake of looking towards Sally Maddox. She was shaking her clasped fist jubilantly, as if it were a football match she was watching and Topher had scored a goal.

  When it was his turn, counsel for the prosecution attempted to prove that only a small percentage of the wine importer’s clients were in fact located in central London; that when he was in England the defendant resided, more often than not, in Oxfordshire; that as far as the “family” claimed by him was concerned, one daughter was married – and well able to afford a place of her own – and the other was in India, where she had been for six months, sitting at the feet of her guru.

  Counsel for the defence, in his summing up, respectfully drew Topher’s attention to Schedule 16, Section 98 of the Green Book on his desk, and urged him to take a broad common-sense view of the case bearing in mind the defendant’s present proximity to his work, that the alternative premises did not as yet exist, that even if they had existed they would be too small, and the fact that there was a world of difference between urban and suburban living.

  Counsel for the prosecution referred Topher to McDonald and Daley, 1969, in which an artist, in possession of what Topher understood to be three brooms, was offered two.

  “Brooms?” Topher said.

  “Rooms! Your Honour.”

  Raising
his voice so that he could be heard more clearly, he pointed out for Topher’s benefit the difference between “suitable” and “reasonable” accommodation. He suggested that it was in the public interest for the Maida Vale flat to be made available to some unfortunate family who did not even have one, let alone two homes. Topher, with one eye on the lunchtime clock, courteously thanked the representative of the property company for the detailed plans he had provided for the rehousing of the defendant. The needs of the tenant must however be taken into account. The alternative premises were totally unsuitable in location, totally inferior in character, totally inferior with regard to size and totally inferior bearing in mind proximity to the defendant’s work. The fact that he had two homes was largely irrelevant, but the age and poor health of his parents must be taken seriously into consideration. Bearing in mind all three factors the plaintiff’s case could be said to disintegrate like a pack of cards. He could see no alternative but to dismiss it.

  Counsel for the defendant, looking decidedly pleased with himself, jumped up to ask for costs, and from the corner of his eye Topher saw Sally Maddox put her notebook and pencil away.

  Over lunch in his room, during which Mrs Sweetlove appeared an inordinate number of times to enquire if there was anything further His Honour wanted, Sally Maddox said: “My problem is that I can always see both sides of everything. I started off feeling sorry for the development company, then, when the wine importer’s wife said that the flat in Maida Vale had been the ‘nerve centre of the family’ and their home for twenty-odd years, I felt sorry for her. I’d be hopeless as a judge.”

  Topher passed her a tub of apricot yoghurt.

  “The case has to be decided on questions of law – taking into account the precedents – and fact. One has to interpret such terms as needs, in the legal sense, and to be aware of the precise difference between reasonable and suitable. Emotions, fortunately, do not enter into it.”

  Mrs Sweetlove tapped and entered.

  “Will your guest be requiring coffee, Your Honour?” She addressed Topher pointedly as if Sally Maddox did not exist.

  When she had gone, Topher said: “I saw you writing. Did you get what you wanted?”

  “Strangely enough,” Sally fished for the lumps of apricot in the yoghurt, “one of the more interesting moments was outside the court. I eavesdropped on a couple of barristers. I thought I might catch some pearls of legal wisdom.”

  “And?”

  “They were discussing car telephones. Apparently one is not only charged for outgoing calls, but incoming calls have to be paid for too. Henry James would have been fascinated.”

  “What has Henry James to do with car telephones?”

  “The ‘jog of fancy’s elbow’. Do you have any books about judges?”

  “Several. We’ll stop at the house on the way home if you like.”

  The invitation had been issued lightly. It had not occurred to Topher that to take Sally Maddox home was to invite her to tread on his dreams. Unlocking the front door and stepping back to allow her, in her scarlet poppies, to enter the house he felt the silent accusation of its greeting.

  He left Sally in his study before the books on the judiciary and went into the kitchen to make some tea. As he was filling the kettle he heard the telephone ring.

  “Shall I take it?” Sally called from the study.

  “Please.”

  He plugged in the kettle and depressed the automatic switch.

  “She says her name is Lucille.” There was incredulity in Sally’s voice. “This Saturday is sold out but she can get tickets for the following week. Is that all right?”

  Topher remembered that he had agreed to go to Cats. Also that the following weekend he was promised to Jo Henderson in Berkshire.

  He removed two tea-bags from the caddy and dismissed the swift image of Jo Henderson’s déshabillé from his mind.

  “Tell Lucille the weekend after next will be fine.”

  As he filled the teapot the telephone rang again.

  “Someone called Tina?” Sally, her eyebrows raised, stood in the doorway.

  Topher put down the kettle.

  “That’s my sister.”

  “Pull the other one!” Sally said.

  Fourteen

  “Who’s Lucille?” Sally Maddox, her scarlet poppies brightening up the kitchen, helped herself to the last of Topher’s chocolate-chip cookies.

  Topher did not answer immediately. He wondered if his hesitation to reply to Sally’s question stemmed from the fact that he was ashamed that he had actually agreed to go and see Cats, or from a natural disinclination to discuss with her the details of his private life. Before he had a chance to resolve the problem, he heard himself tell Sally about Miles’ birthday party and about Lucille. He also told her about Jo Henderson and the evening at Le Mazarin. To spare his own blushes he applied a blue pencil to the penultimate scene.

  When he had finished speaking, the tea was cold. Sally got up to refill the kettle. As she passed behind Topher’s chair she ruffled his hair and, for a moment, held his head against the scarlet poppies. He could feel the warmth of her flesh and the comforting leaps of her heart.

  “All these lady friends, and there you are sitting up there in your wig,” she said, releasing him, “as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.”

  “I assure you it wouldn’t.” Topher straightened his hair and passed her the teapot.

  “After tea,” Sally changed the subject, “will you show me the house?”

  They started with the Piano Room. Topher looked at the polished oak boards, the carved wooden cowl over the fireplace, the ebony concert grand which Caroline had brought to the marriage. He saw black ties, long dresses, hired help circulating with silver trays of canapés. The image faded. It was replaced with a children’s party, in which Chelsea and Penge sat in a semi-circle of their friends on the floor, before a conjuror who produced china eggs from the air and ribbons of coloured handkerchiefs from the tightly closed fists of astounded volunteers. He saw Christmases with brightly lit trees. Caroline’s Bring-and-Buy sales (tables piled high with bric-à-brac) from which he would run a mile. Discos – the music from which could be heard as far as Marcus and April’s – in which the men wore “Doctor Marten’s” and the girls all looked as if they could do with a good scrub. He saw the silver wedding celebrations at which Penge (in electric-blue crêpe, with a matching headband low over her forehead) had recited an adulatory ode, composed by herself and Chelsea, to her parents. The girls’ nuptials, which he and Caroline had pictured as taking place in the Piano Room, had not materialised.

  Sally Maddox, on the threshold of the room now redolent only of disuse, made no comment. Topher was grateful. He closed the door, turning the key on his recollections. They made their way upstairs.

  Seeing his home through other eyes, Topher was conscious of the threadbare patches of carpet, of the heavy furniture and dated décor. In the two functional bathrooms there were no twin washbasins, no gold taps, no marble surrounds. April had been itching to get her hands on the house for years. He left the bedroom until last. His throat tightened as he opened the door for Sally Maddox. She touched the bed, and Caroline’s bureau, lightly – as if her fingers were recording the chenille bedspread, the inlaid mahogany – then crossed the room and looked out at the plane trees which lined the street.

  “Shall you move?”

  “The girls want me to.”

  “The house is rather large.”

  “There are things in it which one couldn’t put into a packing-case.”

  “You’re wrong, Christopher. They’re in your head. They will always be there.”

  Downstairs, in the little-used sitting room which overlooked the garden, Sally looked at the photographs of Chelsea and Penge. She studied them for a long time.

  “I had a child,” she said.

  Topher was surprised.

  Sally sat in the armchair, which had been Caroline’s, clutching a photograph of Penge in her
school uniform. It had been taken when Penge was ten.

  “We lived in Holland Park. We had a big house then. Oliver published art books. Coffee-table. Thomas went to St Paul’s. Oliver used to take Tom to school every day on his way to the office. Tom was never ready. He took after me. Oliver was obsessional. Tom drove him to distraction. Oliver used to threaten him. If he wasn’t waiting with his cap, and his satchel, and his football boots – or whatever it happened to be – at quarter to eight, Oliver said he’d have to go to school on the train.

  “One morning Oliver carried out his threat. He was in the car. Tom was still in the bedroom looking for his French verb book. It was five to eight. Oliver hooted, and Tom banged on the window to say he wouldn’t be a moment. Oliver didn’t hear him. Perhaps he did. I don’t know. He drove off. To teach Tom a lesson. I helped Tom look for his book. It was under his pillow – he’d been learning connaître before he went to sleep. He was furious with Oliver. ‘Now I’ll be late, Mummy,’ he said. ‘It’s not fair!’ Those were the last words. ‘It’s not fair’. He ran across Notting Hill to the station. He was knocked down by a bus…”

  She stopped and looked at Topher.

  “…he was eleven years old.”

  “Oh my God,” Topher said.

  “He would be twenty-one now. Sometimes, to console myself, I think that he might have been into drugs, or that I’d be worrying about AIDS. That perhaps his death was some kind of divine salvation. I don’t believe it. I try not to think about it more than I can help, but occasionally…

  “After Tom died, Oliver and I split up. Not immediately. Things were never the same. Oliver went completely to pieces. He started drinking. Then he took to religion of various kinds, some of them completely cracked. After that it was analysis. It didn’t seem to do him much good. The publishing went to pot. He never stopped blaming himself for Tom’s death, although of course it wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t look at him without accusing him in my head. As if he had actually murdered Tom with his own hands. When we realised that we were slowly destroying each other we decided to call it a day. I went to live in the country where I wouldn’t see those red buses, in reality as well as in my dreams. Oliver went to Ireland. He has a farm. Outside Killarney. And a woman he lives with. I went to visit him when I was there.”