Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

Justice Stanley listened to all this, back in 1947, summed up, took the verdict, passed judgment — death by hanging — and experienced an inexplicable orgasm. He remembered it frequently from that day onwards.

Sir Sullivan Stanley (he had been knighted) was in his mid-fifties at the time of George Forrester’s trial. The death penalty in England was afterwards abolished, and so there was no further call for Sir Sullivan to experience another such orgasm. Lady Stanley was some years older than her husband, just past her sixties. She was known everywhere as a good lady full of charitable activities such as prison visiting, the governing of schools, the organizing of soup kitchens. She had borne one son, now a lawyer in private practice. Sex in her life was a thing of the past; in fact, her recurring bouts of rheumatism prevented her from sharing anyone’s bed.

At that time, Sir Sullivan frequented a lady who was known to the legal profession and who occasionally kept an afternoon for him. Lady Stanley suspected nothing of her existence, nor did she need to know. The affair, if it could be called that, between Sir Sullivan and Mary Spike, the lady in question, was something of an animated cartoon. She induced a mild sensation in the Justice; nothing more. Lady Stanley did not think for a moment that her husband could have another woman. She felt he was too pompous to take off his trousers in another person’s house, and in this she was almost right.

After the death of Lady Stanley, Sir Sullivan, approaching his seventies, now visited Mary Spike occasionally, but just for the visit. The unusual circumstances of his sexual experience on the sentencing of George Forrester had really taken him by surprise.

He often thought back on the day when he had that orgasm in court. What happened to that gratuitous orgasm? Where was it now? It was like a butterfly fluttering away into the summer, always eluding the net. It even occurred to him that he might achieve one orgasm more before he died, by hanging himself. But it was problematic whether the phenomenon of an erection would amount to the sensation of an orgasm in a man whose neck was on the point of breaking, if not already broken. Besides, the secretly distraught judge mused, a suicide would look so bad in the Times obituary. Not to be thought of.

When Sir Sullivan retired he stayed for a while with his son in Hampstead. But this didn’t work well. He decided to go and live in a residential hotel, and it was with great excitement that he discovered that the Rosemary Lawns Hotel was still functioning. Memories of the trial of George Forrester came back to him ever more vividly.

The Rosemary Lawns Hotel sparkled with new paint the day the judge went to seek a room there. The ‘Lawns’ referred evidently to a tennis court, adjacent to the hotel, and an equal-sized stretch of flower-bordered lawn on the other side of a gravel path. It was early autumn, and the leaves scuffled along the tree-lined street. Some schoolgirls were chirpily playing tennis.

Sir Sullivan asked for the manager. A short figure came out of the back office. His white hair and slightly thickened appearance at first, and only for a moment, concealed the fact that this was probably the very man, the actual proprietor of the hotel, who had given evidence in court all those years ago.

‘Are you Mr Roger Cook?’ inquired the Justice.

‘Yes, indeed, sir.’

‘Good afternoon. I’m Sir Sullivan Stanley.’

‘The Judge! Sir Sullivan, you don’t show your years.

‘Yes, I’m the Judge himself. I have been here before, you know. At the time of the trial, when I came to case the joint, if I may use a vulgarism.

‘Sir Sullivan,’ said Roger Cook, ‘it was a very hard time for us. All the permanent clients left. We thought of changing the name of the hotel, but we sat it out. We were especially grateful to you for that reference to Rosemary Lawns Hotel in your summing up.’

‘What was that?’ said Sir Sullivan.

‘You said we were a perfectly respectable place, clean and cosy. That it was no reflection on the establishment that the accused and his unfortunate victim happened to have taken up their abode at Rosemary Lawns. I recall the very words,’ said Roger Cook. ‘We always quoted them to the press when we gave interviews in those tragic weeks.’

‘Well, I congratulate you on the appearance of the place. I am glad to see the tennis court is being used.’

‘We rent out the court on certain days to a private school,’ said Roger Cook.

‘Well, I’ll be direct,’ said Sir Sullivan Stanley. ‘I’m looking for a comfortable place for my retirement. A fairly large room, bath and television. And, of course, a dining-room. If you don’t have the dining-room any more, I’m afraid it’s no good. To me, the dining-room is essential.’

‘But of course, Sir Sullivan, we have the same dining-room. Nothing’s changed except the decoration. Come with me. It would be an honour to have you here.’

He led the way to the dining-room, where the tables were laid for dinner with pink cloths. On one table stood a bottle of Milk of Magnesia, but that alone was not enough evidence against the quality of the dinner. Roger Cook showed Sir Sullivan the menu: mulligatawny soup followed by breast of lamb, peas and potatoes. Cheese (if required — extra charge according to choice), and strawberry or vanilla ice cream. Coffee or decaffeinated, as desired. Tea on request.

Sir Sullivan said, ‘Which of those tables did George Forrester occupy?’

‘The third on the right under the window if I’m not mistaken. And poor Mrs Crathie’s was the next table to his, second on the right. Of course, we hold receptions, and so on. We use the supplementary dining-room.’

‘The table by the window looks delightful,’ said Sir Sullivan with an air of decided nonchalance. ‘Nice outlook.’

The proprietor, somewhat puzzled that the old Judge would actually prefer to sir in the murderer’s chair, nevertheless made haste to assure the Judge that that particular table was not occupied by permanent pensionnaires at that moment.

So Sir Sullivan Stanley made an agreeable arrangement with the hotel and moved in the following Monday. He came down to dinner at quarter to eight to find the dining-room three-quarters full and some of the diners already nearing the end of the meal.

A middle-aged woman with a long neck sat at the table next to his. She had reached the coffee stage.

‘Good evening,’ said the Justice.

She responded with a kind of extra warmth, as if she approved of this gentleman, it being somewhat of a lottery who one got at the next table.

The waiter brought Sir Sullivan’s soup.

The Justice turned to his neighbour, ‘Are you by any chance,’ he said, ‘Mrs Crathie?’

‘No, my name is Mrs Morton. Do I resemble a friend of yours?’

‘No — no friend. Just a person.

Sir Sullivan felt happy in her company. There was a small fire at the end of the dining-room. Cosy. He thought of the schoolgirls who had been playing tennis outside, so encouraging to look at. He thought then of Mary Spike, his part-time mistress of so many years ago, and remembered how one afternoon when he had failed to come up to scratch she had cruelly laughed at him. ‘What an antique pendant you’ve got there. Talk about hanging judge! You’re the hanging judge!’

Justice Stanley, seated at the late George Forrester’s table, where the man had once sat wearing that bright brown Harris tweed coat, looked at and partook of his mulligatawny soup. Then he looked across at Mrs Morton with the greatest surprise — transfixed in a dreamy joy, as if he had seen a welcome ghost.

Mrs Morton sipped her coffee and looked at him.