In Pursuit of the English: A Documentary

by Doris Lessing

  Then the other Counsel took over. As he stood there in his dull black, the knobbly wig kept slipping backwards, exposing a large sweating expanse of red scalp, and he glanced continually at the notes in his hand, like a dull pupil in class. It was not that he had a bad case, in fact I think both our Counsel and lawyer expected him to win it; but he looked as if he hadn’t had a good one for years, and had forgotten the habit of confidence. And his manner was even more ponderously sarcastic than with Dan. With each supercilious phrase, Flo got more upset; she was already off balance because our own Counsel had shown no friendly emotion; and this man’s display of thin and peevish hostility caused her voice to rise and her gestures to enlarge.

  ‘Surely,’ grated Counsel, ‘no reasonable person would put pepper on tulips?’

  Flo shrugged. ‘That’s what I keep saying all the time, dear.’

  ‘You say …’ and Counsel consulted his notes, for the effectiveness of the gesture, ‘that she had a dish of pepper. Now what do you mean by that?’ Flo stared at him. ‘A dish of pepper,’ he creaked; and stood smiling with prepared amusement.

  ‘Well, if you don’t know what I mean I can’t help you.’ Flo held an imaginary pepper-pot over the edge of the witness-box, and shook it hard.

  ‘You mean a pepper-pot perhaps?’ smiled the Counsel.

  ‘I don’t mind what you call it, dear, it’s all the same to me.’

  ‘Mrs Bolt,’ said the Judge severely, ‘you really must not call Learned Counsel dear.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Proceed.’

  After a pause Counsel said: ‘You will admit that pepper is very expensive.’

  Flo raised her hands. ‘God knows,’ she exclaimed, ‘the way prices are going up it’s a wonder we are alive to tell the tale.’

  ‘I asked you if pepper was not very expensive.’

  Flo stared again. ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Just exactly how much does pepper cost?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, because I’m still using the pepper my friend from Edgware gave me when she had the blitz on her shop.’

  ‘Mrs Bolt,’ drawled the Judge, peering over the edge of his table like an irritated tortoise, ‘do please answer the questions put to you.’

  Flo blushed at the injustice of it. ‘But I did answer. He said, how much does pepper cost, and I said I don’t know because…’

  The Judge said reprovingly to Counsel: ‘I really do think the price of pepper is irrelevant to the point at issue.’

  ‘I was trying to establish a point, my lord.’

  ‘I think I can see the point you were trying to establish.’

  At this evidence of the Judge’s short temper, our Counsel visibly brightened; but Flo was still miserable. ‘I was only trying to tell him because he …’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ said the Judge.

  After a long pause. Counsel pulled himself together for another onslaught. ‘What time of the year was this?’ he demanded cunningly.

  ‘Time of year? Tulip time.’

  ‘You don’t know the exact month?’

  ‘The time tulips bloom,’ said Flo, with irritation. ‘Spring. Don’t you know the time tulips flower?’

  ‘And when you saw pepper on the tulips, what did you do?’

  ‘Well, dear. I went out to have a look at it.’

  ‘Mrs Bolt, will you kindly not refer to Counsel as dear, I’ve told you already.’

  ‘Ah, my lord, it slipped out, and I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘How do you know it was pepper?’

  ‘How did I know? It was red, like pepper.’

  ‘Red? Red pepper?’

  ‘Paprika,’ said Flo, patient but exasperated.

  ‘Oh!’ He consulted his notes, ‘I took you to mean white pepper.’

  The Judge said: ‘I really do feel that the colour of the pepper was immaterial.’

  ‘My lord, is it likely that two old people on the old age pension should use red pepper. A rather exotic commodity, I should say.’

  ‘Y e e e e s,’ mumured the Judge.

  ‘Mrs Bolt, is it likely that your tenants should use expensive red pepper?’

  ‘Why not? The old witch crawled downstairs and stole it from me, you don’t catch her buying anything she can nip out of my cupboard if I forget to lock it.’

  ‘Mrs Bolt,’ said the Judge. ‘I see nothing about theft in your statement.’

  ‘Did I forget to put it in, dear? Well, it slipped my mind what with all the other things.’

  ‘Mrs Bolt, if you don’t show some respect for this Court, then I really am afraid I must fine you for Contempt.’

  ‘Contempt?’ cried Flo, on the verge of tears. ‘What’s that? But, sir, it gets me all flustered, with this talk about the price of this and the price of that.’

  The Judge said to Counsel: ‘Do you intend to take this matter of theft up?’

  Counsel gave a dubious look at the old lady, shook his head hurriedly, and went straight on at Flo: ‘How did you know it was pepper? It might have been dust.’

  ‘Know? I saw the old witch sprinkle it on.’

  ‘Mrs Bolt, you really must not use this language in Court.’

  Flo burst into tears, saw Dan grinding his teeth at her, and dried her eyes, dolefully.

  ‘Did you smell the pepper to make sure?’ asked Counsel.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because if you smell pepper you sneeze.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ said the Judge. He looked at the clock and sighed.

  Defence Counsel in order to gain time, asked: ‘Let me put it to you that you sprinkled the pepper on the tulips yourself.’

  The Judge sighed again.

  Flo shouted: ‘Now is it likely I’d put pepper on the tulips I’d planted and watered with my own hands?’

  ‘Don’t shout,’ said the Judge.

  ‘But he doesn’t believe me,’ said Flo, in genuine distress, pointing at the Counsel.

  ‘My good woman, it’s his job not to believe you.’

  ‘Well, it seems silly to me.’

  ‘It’s not for you to say what’s silly and what isn’t.’

  ‘Well, who’s paying for it? It’s cost us over a hundred pounds already, and more to come for today’s foolery,’ said Flo bitterly. ‘Why can’t we decide who we want to have in our own house, that we bought and paid for?’

  ‘Mrs Bolt, for the last time, will you restrain your language?’

  Flo shrugged, as if to say: ‘Well, let’s have done with it, and I want my tea.’ It was clear she had lost all hope of gaining anything by the case. But she had worn out the Counsel, who dismissed her.

  They now called Rose, who had been sitting next to me. I had felt her trembling at the idea of standing up, thus exposed in public. She was very white, and her voice was faint.

  Our Counsel got his witnesses mixed, and asked Rose about the noise the old people made; which was what he was to have asked Jack, had he been called. Rose had refused to give evidence on this point, since she had not heard any noise.

  ‘What did you say, do speak up,’ said the Judge rudely. Rose’s lips moved, without sound. She was on the point of fainting. ‘I don’t hear it,’ she brought out at last.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know about the noise. What I know about is the mess in the bathroom.’

  ‘That was not what you were asked,’ said the Judge.

  Rose looked at him in appeal, her tongue moving over her lips. Our Counsel hastily dismissed her, and Defence took her over.

  ‘You say you never hear any noise?’ he said.

  Rose said: ‘Either I’m in or I’m out, so I don’t hear it.’

  ‘I fail to see the logic of that,’ said the Judge.

  ‘Kindly answer my question,’ said Counsel, with extreme sarcasm, delighted to find someone he could bully.

  ‘I’m out at the times they make their noise,’ she said.

  �
�Then how do you know they make it?’

  ‘Because Mrs Bolt tells me so.’

  ‘Then why did you claim to have heard it yourself?’

  ‘I never did,’ said Rose, She had got her colour back. Now she grasped the edge of the witness-box with both hands, took a breath and said with dignity: ‘You’re trying to make what I say sound how you want. But I said, I said all along, I’d only say what I know is the truth.’

  ‘It is correct,’ said the Judge, ‘that the witness did not claim to have heard the noise herself.’

  Counsel fussed a little, and dismissed Rose, who slid into the bench beside me, clutched at my hand, and sat breathing deeply, trembling all over, her eyes shut.

  There was a feeling of inconclusiveness in the air as the old lady went to the witness-box. The Judge leafed through his papers, and it seemed as if he might say, ‘People living together should use tolerance,’ as the last Judge had; and bind everyone over for a further period.

  The old lady entered the witness-box as if the act of doing so was a protest of innocence. She took the oath with trembling fervour. She said she had never insulted Flo because she was a foreigner; and in the next breath that she would not have foreigners turning her out of her house. She said that as a decent British woman she never swore; and then delivered a fluent imitation of Dan at his best.

  ‘That will do,’ said the Judge frowning, so that the people in the Court who were smiling composed their faces.

  He went on leafing over his notes, in a worried way, looking for some final conclusive point on which to deliver judgment. Besides, what could be done with the old people? But then, if they were undesirable, so, clearly, were Dan and Flo. The silence continued. Then the Judge made a gesture and the two Counsels both gave short summing-up speeches, for form’s sake, for it was clear that the Judge was not listening. He was peering at the old people and at Flo and Dan as if to say: ‘Must you behave like this?’

  Suddenly the old lady shot to her feet and announced loudly: ‘They are all in conspiracy against me.’

  The old man painfully stretched up to pull her to her seat, but she shook him off, so violently he slid along the bench in a heap, and pointed to our lawyer and our Counsel, shouting: ‘They were telling the landlord to tell lies. I heard them.’

  ‘Please sit down,’ said the Judge.

  ‘In that room,’ shrieked the old lady, pointing a trembling finger across the Court. ‘They were there, I heard them, they were saying they must tell lies, the truth doesn’t matter, that’s what they said.’

  Now the Judge looked really angry. ‘You can’t say things like that,’ he said.

  The old lady burst into shrieks and oaths, dancing up and down between the wooden benches, and pointing at various legal gentlemen around her. ‘He – that one – look! Lies! Lies! Lies! Justice, British justice, it’s all Jews and foreigners, it’s a plot, it’s a conspiracy …’

  An official pushed the old lady down in her seat. In a minute, the whole thing was over. The Judge, at express speed, gave the old people a month to find somewhere to live. Then, feeling perhaps that his manner was not in the highest traditions of legal solemnity, he pulled himself together and made a short but admirable summing-up, which was understood by neither of the parties, because the words he used were out of their experience.

  In fact. Dan and Flo believed that the case had gone against them, because of the gravity of the Judge’s manner. And it was certainly impressive to think that if the old lady had not suddenly gone crazy, the Judge would, at that moment, and with equal ease, be summing up in the opposite way.

  When he said: ‘We recommend both sides, for the limited amount of time left, to use their best efforts in the interests of mutual harmony.’ Flo said crossly, ‘Harmony yourself,’ in a voice which reached him. He looked puzzled, since he had just put their point of view: ‘ – people who have behaved, perhaps not quite as they normally would have done, if not under severe provocation by a couple who clearly need asylum in a place run by sympathetic people.’ Dan nodded emphatically at the word asylum, and tapped his forehead, muttering: He says they’re nuts, so why is he against us?

  Outside Rose pointed out that the case was theirs.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Flo sorrowfully, ‘he was awfully cross.’

  We had to call over the lawyer, in order to assure Flo and Dan that they had won the case.

  Back in the basement Dan unloaded bottles of beer all over the table. Flo shed bits of thick black off her in all directions until she arrived at the comfort of an apron. Dan ripped off jacket and shirt, loosened his trousers, and let his singlet hang loose.

  ‘I can’t really believe it,’ said Flo. ‘Getting our own house to ourselves at last.’

  Dan gave his bared-teeth smile; the heavy forearms resting on the table before him were taut with muscle; Rose nodded towards him and whispered to me. ‘Look, Dan’s already imagining how he’ll get his hands on to that flat and do it up.’ Dan heard her; looked up, and nodded at us. At that moment he was not even thinking of the money. ‘It’s like this,’ he said, frowning because of his deep disbelief in his power to communicate: ‘I go into a dirty room, it’s all dirty …’ His eyes moved from side to side, disliking what they saw. ‘And then …’ his hands clenched and opened out again, waiting: ‘I can make it all like new. See?’

  Flo laughed, and said to us, full of pride: ‘It’s nice to watch him, I like that, you’d never believe a place could be nice when he starts, and then it is.’ She drank gulps of beer and said: ‘I feel so happy, I don’t know what to do.’ She nodded towards Jack and said: ‘Look at Jack, he’s happy, too.’ Jack, already back in his singlet and running shorts, was trip-stepping about the kitchen, humming, with a puppy in his arms.

  Dan turned his head sharply to look, his fists clenched up again, this time in irritation, but he said nothing for the time.

  ‘Yes,’ went on Flo, not noticing Rose’s steadily critical look at her: ‘And just think, two years ago, we had six hundred pounds between us horn the war, and this old house, just ruins it was, and now the old people are going we could sell it any time, for three thousand, four thousand, it makes you think.’

  Jack let out a little yelp of delight, did some fancy kicks, and began to sing ‘The best things in life are free.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dan. ‘And no thanks to some people who are going to benefit.’

  Jack gave him a dubious, scared glance, smiled in appeal at him, and danced the faster.

  ‘Ah, the poor old things,’ said Flo. ‘I wonder where they’ll go now.’

  ‘For crying out aloud,’ said Rose in disgust.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ said Flo. ‘I never really saw them before, not like that, to look at steady. When I saw them in that Court I felt sorry for them, I did really.’

  Rose grimaced at me, and raised her eyes.

  ‘They’ve got four kids,’ said Dan. ‘She let it out once. Three grown-up sons and a daughter.’

  ‘Well, it’s all right, then,’ said Flo, ‘they’ll have a home.’

  ‘Except that they haven’t seen their kids since before the war,’ commented Rose.

  ‘No sense depending on your kids,’ said Dan, looking at Jack.

  Jack was scared now, and he stopped dancing, and sat quietly by himself on a chair by the sink.

  The bell rang, and Flo went up to answer it. While she was away. Dan stared steadily at his stepson, trying to force him to raise his eyes and face him. But Jack pretended to be unaware; he played with a puppy at his feet, keeping his head down.

  Flo came back, and stood in the door, wiping her hands unconsciously, over and over, on her apron, and her mouth was open.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Rose.

  ‘It’s the Welfare. From the Court. There’s a lady and a man and they’ve got a sort of ambulance. They’re taking away the old people to a Home. They say they’re not fit to look after themselves. Well, why couldn’t they have said it before, that’s what I want to kno
w, instead of making us miserable and costing us ail that money.’

  ‘What sort of a Home?’ asked Rose.

  ‘How should I know, dear?’ She was looking up at the ceiling, to avoid Rose’s challenge. ‘Well, it won’t take them long to pack – nothing but a fistful of rags between the two of them.’ Over our heads were heavy and purposeful footsteps, and the sound of a high steady whimpering.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a lunatic asylum,’ enquired Rose steadily. ‘We know what them places are like, don’t we?’

  ‘But better off there,’ said Flo hastily, smiling in terrified appeal at her, ‘much better off there than here.’

  ‘Better there than being killed by you and Dan one dark night,’ said Rose.

  Dan was now moving about in his chair with heavy restless movements. He was grinding his teeth – at Rose, at me, at Jack.

  Rose stood up. She was still buttoned up in her suit, and she had drunk no more than a mouthful of beer.

  ‘Where’s you going, sweetheart?’ said Flo. ‘Out with Dickie? That’s nice, and I hope you’ll have a nice time.’

  Rose did not answer. She gave me a meaning glance – Come with me, and avoid trouble. I got up, too.

  Jack suddenly cried out: ‘Why are you cross with me? Just because I didn’t know how to talk right in the box? You’re not cross with Rose, and she didn’t say nothing in the box.’

  ‘Oh, but Rose was clever,’ said Flo hastily, sacrificing her son to her husband. ‘She told us better than the lawyers did, they said so themselves.’

  ‘But she didn’t say nothing in the box,’ said Jack, helplessly, in terror of his stepfather.

  ‘You didn’t even try,’ said Dan.

  ‘Well, don’t take it out on Jack, just because your consciences are hurting you,’ said Rose crisply.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, darling,’ cried Flo, Upstairs the noise had ceased and we heard a car drive off.

  ‘Well, they’ve gone,’ said Flo. ‘And now let’s sit down and have a nice little drink and be happy.’