' When it goes well. We made a bit of headway, this afternoon.' 'You sure did.' 'Erica was a bit upset,' Nick looked from one to the other of us, embarrassed.
' Is that the way you make your living?' Erica repeated.
'A humble living. With an occasional glass of cooking champagne, with paying briefs."
'Attacking women?' I must confess I hadn't thought of Bridget Evans as a woman, but as a witness. I tried to explain.
'Not women in particular. I attack anyone, regardless of age or sex, who chooses to attack my client.' ' God knows which is the criminal. Him or her.' 'But, old darling. That's what we're rather trying to find out.' 'What worries Ricky is,' Nick was doing his best to explain, ' the girl has to go through all that. I mean, it's not only the rape.' ' Not only the rape ?' ' Well, it's like she's getting punished, isn't it?' 'Aren't you rather rushing things? I mean, who's saying a rape took place?' 'Well,isn'tshe?' 'Oh, I see. You think it's enough if she says it? It's a different sort of crime, is it? I mean, not like murder or shoplifting, or forging cheques. They still have to be proved in the old-fashioned way. But rape... Some dotty girl only has to say you did it and you trot off to chokey without asking embarrassing questions... Look, you don't want to discuss a boring old case. What've you been doing Nick? Getting ready for Warwick?' But Erica wasn't to be deterred.
'Of course we should discuss the case.' She'd have made an advocate, this Erica, she was dogged. ' I mean, it's the greatest act of aggression that any human being can inflict!' 'Ricky! Dad's just doing his job. I'm sorry we came.' Nicky looked at his watch, no doubt hoping they had an appointment.
'I'm glad! Oh sure I'm glad,' Erica was smiling, quite mirthlessly. 'He's a field study in archaic attitudes!' 'Look, old sweetheart. Is it archaic to believe in some sort of equality of the sexes ?' She looked taken aback at that. 'Equality! You're into equality?' ' For God's sake, yes! Give you equal pay, certainly. Let you be all-in wrestlers and Lord Chancellor. By all means! I'll even make the supreme sacrifice and give up giving my seat in the bus... But you're asking for women witnesses to be more equal than any other witnesses!' 'But in that sort of case,' Erica wasn't to be won over by any sort of irony,' a man forcing his masculinity...' 'Or a woman getting her revenge?' I suggested. 'I mean, I don't suppose I'll ever have to actually choose between being raped and being put in the cooler for five years, banged up with a bar of soap and a chamber pot, but if I ever had...' 'You're being defensive again!' Erica smiled at me, quite tolerantly.
'Ami?' 'The argument's kind of painful so you make a little joke.' 'Perhaps. But it's not exactly a joke. I mean, have you considered the possibility of my client being innocent?' 'Well, he'd better be. That's all I can say. After what you did to that girl this afternoon, he'd better be!' Then Nick remembered they were due at the pictures and they left me, Erica with the warm feeling of having struck a blow for her sex, Nick perhaps a little torn between us, but holding Erica's arm as he steered her out. I went over to the bar for a packet of small cigars and there were the learned friends pouring over a pink slip of paper which Jack Pommeroy was showing them. As soon as I drew up beside the bar, Jack showed me the cheque; it was made out to me from a firm of solicitors called Sprout and Pennyweather and had my name scrawled on the back. It was for the princely sum of nine pounds fifty, my remuneration for a conference. I looked at my purported signature and felt unaccountably depressed.
'No need to tell us, Rumpole,' said Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., M.P. 'It's Albert's signature.' ' It's peaceful down here. Extraordinarily peaceful.' The Honourable Member was eating spaghetti rings and drinking hot, sweet tea down in the cells; Sam Parkin had declined bail in the lunch hour. He seemed extraordinarily contented, a fact which worried me not a little.
' I'm afraid it's hardly a three rosettes in the Michelin, as far as the grub's concerned,' I apologized to Aspen.
'It's tasteless stodge. Like nursery tea. Sort of comforting.' ' Really there are only two important things to remember. One. You saw the poster scribbled on as soon as you came into the room.' I tried to wrench his attention back to the case. 'And you believed she wanted it. That's all! You just believed it.' 'Did you have to ask her those questions?' Aspen looked at me, more in sorrow than in anger.
'Yes.' 'Dragging out her life, for the vultures in the press box.' 'I want you to win.' This bizarre ambition of mine made the Honourable Member smile.
'You sound like my wife. She wants me to win. Always. I'm so tired. It's peaceful down here, isn't it? Very peaceful.' ' Look out, old darling. You're not falling in love with the Nick, are you?' I had seen it before, that terrible look of resignation.
'For years, oh, as long as I can remember, Anna's worked so hard. On me winning.' He seemed to be talking to himself; I felt strangely superfluous. 'Sitting on platforms. Chatting up ministers. Keeping in with the press. Trying to convince the faithful that it all still meant something. My wife... Anna, you know. She wanted me in the cabinet. She'd like to have been, a minister's wife.' 'And what did you want?" It was a long time before he answered me, and then he said,' I wanted it to stop!' Calling your own client is the worst part of a trial. You can't attack him, or lead him, or do anything but stand with your palms sweating and hope to God the old nitwit tells the right story. Mrs Aspen was staring at her husband, as if to transfer to him a little of her indomitable will. He stood in the witness box, smiling gently, as though someone else was on trial and he was a not very interested spectator. I showed him the defaced poster and asked the five thousand dollar question,' Did you see that had been done when you went into the room ?' He looked at me almost as if I was the one to be pitied, and said, after a pause,' I can't remember.' I smiled as if I'd got exactly the answer I wanted, a bit of a sickly smile.' Did Miss Evans start talking about your wife ?' 'About Anna. Yes.' ' Did she want you to leave your wife?' ' Did she ?' Sam Parkin was helping me out in the silence.
'I can't... I can't exactly remember. She went on and on, goading me.' ' What happened then?' It was then the Honourable Member showed his first sign of passion. 'She'd been asking for it! All that clap-trap about betraying the Party. All those cliches about power corrupting. I suddenly got angry. It was then I...' 'Then you what?' ' Made... Made love to her.' ' In anger?' Sam Parkin was frowning.
'I suppose so. Yes.' I saw Anna's look of fear, and then the judge leaned forward to ask, 'Just tell us this, Mr Aspen. Did you believe that was what she wanted?' So the old darling on the bench had chucked Ken Aspen a lifebelt. I hoped to God the drowning man wasn't going to push it away. It seemed about a year before he answered. 'I don't know, what I believed then. Exactly.' 'It wasn't your fault, if I may say sir.' When I got back to the clerk's room, Albert was, as ever, consoling.' It was the client.' 'That's right, Albert. These things are always so much easier without clients.' I saw that Henry, our second clerk, was smiling as he told me that there was a Chambers meeting and I was to go up to our learned leader's room. When Albert offered to take me up, Henry said that Featherstone had said that it was a meeting for members of Chambers only, and our head clerk wasn't invited. Albert looked at me and I could see he was worried.
'Cheer up Albert,' I told him.' See you at Pommeroy's later.' Featherstone was pouring us all Earl Grey out of his fine bone china tea service.
' It seems that Albert has been pursuing a long career of embezzlement,' he said as he handed round sugar.
'That seems a very long word for nine pounds fifty,' I told them.' I'd say the correct legal expression was fiddling.' ' I don't see how we can excuse crime. Whatever you call it.' Erskine-Brown was clearly appearing for the prosecution.
'Anyway, it was my nine pounds fifty. It seems to me I can call it what I like. I can call it a Christmas present.' At which Uncle Tom, who was dozing in the corner said, 'I suppose it will be Christmas again soon. How depressing.' 'Apparently, it's not justyour money, Rumpole.' Featherstone sat judicially behind his desk.
'Isn't it? Is there the slightest evidence that anyone else suffere
d ?' I asked the assembled company.
'The petty cash!' Erskine-Brown was the only one to answer.
'I told you about the petty cash.' I was too tired to argue with Erskine-Brown.
' You told me you'd borrowed from Albert's float.' 'Yes. And paid for the drinks in Pommeroy's.' 'You were lying, weren't you, Rumpole?' Now even Feather-stone realized Erskine-Brown had gone too far.' Erskine-Brown,' he said. 'That's not the sort of language we use to another member of Chambers. If Rumpole says he borrowed the money then I for one am prepared to accept his word as a gentleman.' Suddenly I grew impatient with the learned friends. I pushed myself to my feet. 'Then you're a fool, that's all I can say as a gentleman. Of course I was lying."
'What does Rumpole say he was doing?' Uncle Tom asked George for information.
'Lying.' 'Dear me, how extraordinary.' 'I lied because I don't like people being condemned,' I explained. ' It goes against my natural instincts.' 'That's very true. He never prosecutes. You don't prosecute, do you, Rumpole?' George gave me a friendly smile. I liked old George.
'No. I don't prosecute.' 'All right. Now we'll hear Rumpole's defence of Albert.' Erskine-Brown leant back in Featherstone's big leather chair, trying to look like a juvenile judge.
' It doesn't seem to me that it's Albert that's in trouble.' 'Not in trouble?' 'It's us! Legal gentlemen. Learned friends. So friendly and so gentlemanly that we never check his books, or ask to see his accounts. Of course he cheats us, little small bits of cheating, nine pounds fifty, to buy a solicitor a drink or two in Pommeroy's. He feels it's a mark of respect. Due to a gent. Like calling you " Sir " when you go wittering on about the typing errors in your statement of claim."
'Rather an odd mark of respect, wouldn't you say, Rumpole?' Featherstone stopped me, and called the meeting to order. 'I move we vote on this.' 'It's a matter for the police,' Erskine-Brown said predictably.
'Rumpole. You wouldn't agree?' The learned leader was asking for my vote.
'You'd hardly expect him to.' Erskine-Brown could never let a sleeping Rumpole lie.
' Well... Albert's part of my life... He always has been.' ' I remember when Albert first came to us. As a boy. He was always whistling out of tune.' Uncle Tom was reminiscing. And I added my tuppence worth. 'He's like the worn-out lino in the Chambers loo and the cells under the Old Bailey. I feel comfortable with A'bert. He's like home. And he goes out and grubs for briefs in a way we're too gentlemanly to consider.' 'He's cheated us. There's no getting away from that.' George interrupted me, quite gently.
'Well, we've got to be cheated occasionally. That's what it's all about, isn't it?' I looked round at their blank faces. 'Otherwise you'd spend your whole life counting your change and adding up bills, and chucking grown men into chokey because they didn't live up to the high ideals of the Chambers, or the Party, or some bloody nonsense.' ' I don't know that I exactly follow.' George was doing his best.
'Neither do I. I've done a rather bloody case. I'm sorry.' I sat down beside our oldest member.' How are you, Uncle Tom ?' 'I never expected Christmas to come again so quickly!' This was Uncle Tom's contribution. Now Featherstone was summing up. 'Personally, speaking quite personally, and without in any way condoning the seriousness of Albert's conduct..."
'Rape's bloody tiring,' I told them. 'Specially when you lose.' 'I would be against calling in the police.' This was Feather-stone's judgement.
' Not very gentlemanly having Old Bill in Chambers. Stamping with his great feet all over the petty cash vouchers.' I lit my last small cigar.
'On the other hand, Albert, in my view, must be asked to leave immediately. All those in favour?" At Featherstone's request all the other hands went up.
'Well, Rumpole,' said Erskine-Brown, teller for the 'Ayes'. ' Have you anything to say ?' 'Have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed against you?' I blew out smoke as I told them an old chestnut. 'They say Mr Justice Snaggs once asked a murderer that. "Bugger all", came a mutter from the dock. So Snaggs J. says to the murder's counsel, "Did your client say something?" "Bugger all, my Lord," the counsel replied. "Funny thing," says Mr Justice Snaggs.'' I thought I heard him say something."' My story ended in a hoot of silence. It was one that my old clerk Albeit laughed at quite often, in Pommeroy's Wine Bar.
A couple of nights later I was sitting alone in Pommeroy's, telling myself a few old legal anecdotes, when to my surprise and delight Nick walked in alone. He sat down and I ordered a bottle of the best Chateau Fleet Street. ' I dropped into Chambers. Albert wasn't there.' 'No. We have a new clerk. Henry.' ' I'm sorry about the case.' 'Yes. The Honourable Member got five years.' I took a mouthful of claret to wash away the taste of prisons, and saw Nick looking at me. 'He had a strong desire to be found guilty. I don't know why exactly.' ' So really you needn't have asked all those questions ?' 'Well, yes, Nick. Yes. I had to ask them. Now, are we going to see you both on Sunday?' There was a pause. Nick looked at me. He obviously had something far more difficult to communicate than the old confessions of poker games in the deserted vicarage during his schooldays.
' I wanted to tell you first. You see. Well, I've decided to take the job in Baltimore. Ricky wants to go back. I mean, we can get a house there... and... well, her family'd miss her if she were stuck with me in England.' 'Her family?' 'They're very close.' 'Yes. Yes, I suppose they are.' 'Apparently her mother hates the idea of Ricky being in England.' He smiled' She's the sort of woman that'd start sending us food parcels.' I could think of nothing to say, except, 'It was good of you, Nick. Good of you to spare the time to drop into Chambers.' 'We'll be back quite often. Ricky and I. We'll be back for visits.' 'You and Ricky, of course. Well then, Cheers.' We had one for our respective roads and I gave my son a bit of advice.' There's one thing you'll have to be careful of, you know, living in America.' 'What's that?' 'The hygiene! It can be most awfully dangerous. The purity! The terrible determination not to adulterate anything! You will be very careful of it, won't you, Nick?' Some weeks later, as I was packing the bulging briefcase after breakfast for a day down the Bailey with a rather objectionable fraud. She Who Must Be Obeyed came in with a postcard from our son and his intended, written in mid-air, with a handsome picture of a jet and a blue sky on the front and kisses from Nick and Ricky on the back. I handed it back to her and she gave it an attentive re-read as she sat down for another cup of tea. Then she said,' You know why Erica went back home, don't you ?' I confessed total ignorance.
'She didn't like it when she came to see you in Court. She didn't like the way you asked all those questions. She made that quite clear, when they were here for lunch last Sunday. When they came to say "Good-bye". She thought the questions you asked that girl were tasteless.' 'Distasteful.' I was on my way to the door. 'That's the word. Distasteful.' ' There's a picture of their jet on the front of this postcard.' 'I saw it. Very handsome.' I opened the kitchen door as dramatically as possible. 'Fare thee well! and if forever still forever, fare thee well' It takes a bad moment to make me fall back on Lord Byron.
'Don't be silly.' Hilda frowned. 'What're you going to do today, Rumpole?' It was a day, like all the others, and I said. 'I suppose. Go on asking distasteful questions.'
Rumpole and the Married Lady
Life at the Bar has its ups and downs, and there are times when there is an appalling decrease in crime, when all the decent villains seem to have gone on holiday to the Costa Brava, and lawfulness breaks out. At such times, Rumpole is unemployed, as I was one morning when I got up late and sat in the kitchen dawdling over breakfast in my dressing gown and slippers, much to the annoyance of She Who Must Be Obeyed who was getting the coffee cups shipshape so that they could be piped on board to do duty as teacups later in the day. I was winning my daily battle with the tormented mind who writes The Times crossword, when Hilda, not for the first time in our joint lives, compared me unfavourably with her late father.
'Daddy got to Chambers dead at nine every day of his life!' 'Your old dad, old C. H. Wystan, got to Cha
mbers dead on nine and spent the morning on The Times crossword. I do it at home, that's the difference between us. You should be grateful.' ' Grateful?' Hilda frowned.
'For the companionship,' I suggested.
' I want you out of the house, Rumpole. Don't you understand that? So I can clear up the kitchen!' ' O woman ! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy and hard to please.' Hilda doesn't like poetry, I could tell by her heavy sigh.
'Just a little peace. So I can be alone. To get on with things.' 'And when I come home a little late in the evenings. When I stop for a moment in Pommeroy's Wine Bar, to give myself strength to face the Inner Circle. You never seem particularly grateful to have been left alone in the house. To get on with things!' 'You've been wasting time. That's what I resent.' '/ wasted Time, and now doth Time waste me.' I switched from Scott to Shakespeare. The reaction of my life-mate was no better.
John Mortimer - Rumpole 1 - Rumpole of The Bailey Page 10
