Tom Sharpe - The Throwback

Furthermore, said Mr Fescue, the plaintiff had been shunned by his neighbours to the extent that eleven houses adjacent to his address or in the same street had been left by their occupants to avoid any connection between them and a supposed murderer. And finally there was Mrs Flawse, correctly named in the novel as Jessica, who would testify that she had never once tied her husband or been tied by him to their marital bed and that there wasn't a whip in the house. Mrs Flawse's distress was of so great an order of magnitude that she had recently taken to wearing a veil to avoid being accosted (in the street) by men with a taste for bondage and flagellation, or alternately insulted by women she had formerly been able to invite to her house but who now refused her entry to their own. By the time Mr Fescue had finished he had portrayed an accurate picture of the young couple's social isolation for quite the wrong reasons, and an inaccurate one of their future financial prospects as a result of the publication of Song of the Heart for the right reasons, namely that the damages to be paid would be enormous.

When Mr Fescue sat down Mr Justice Plummery "and the jury were clearly impressed and Mr Widdershins rose for the defence extremely handicapped. It was all very well for Miss Goldring to claim that Lockhart Flawse was a liar. It was going to be another matter to prove it. Mr Flawse did not look a liar. If anything he looked the opposite while, even behind her veil, Mrs Jessica Flawse radiated an innocence that was in marked contrast to the raddled flamboyance of his client. Booze, books and bed had all left their marks on Miss Goldring. Mr Widdershins did his best. The libel, he claimed, was entirely innocent. The defendant had no knowledge of the plaintiff's existence and had never so much as set eyes on him. The imputation that she had once invited him to tea was utterly without foundation and the fact that Miss Goldring lived in West Pursley while the plaintiff occupied a house in East was purely coincidental. However in the light of the statements made by his learned friend, Mr Fescue, the defence were prepared to apologize and make financial reparation for the damage done to the plaintiff and his wife and for the scorn, ridicule and consequential loss of his profession… Here Miss Goldring broke away from the restraining hand of Mr Shortstead and rose to say that never, never, never would she pay one penny, one single penny to a man she had never written about in her life and that if anyone thought she would they were mistaken. Mr Justice Plummery regarded her with an immense distaste that would have withered the Sphinx at fifty yards and rendered it articulate at a hundred.

'Kindly sit down, madam,' he snarled with blood and iron in his voice. 'What you will or will not do it is up to the Court to decide. But one thing I do assure you, a second interruption and I shall have you held for contempt. Proceed with what there is of your case, Mr Widdershins.'

Mr Widdershins' Adam's apple bobbed like a ping-pong ball on a waterspout in a fairground shooting-gallery as he tried to find words. He had no case.

'My clients plead innocent libel, m'lud,' he squeaked in direct contradiction to his instructions. Mr Justice Plummery looked at him dubiously.

'That is not what I understood,' he said. Mr Widdershins asked for an adjournment to consult with his clients. It was granted and was spent in exultation by Mr Fescue and Mr Gibling and Lockhart, and in acrimonious arguments by Mr Widdershins and Miss Goldring. Mr Shortstead was ready in the face of the plaintiff's case to settle out of court. Miss Goldring in the face of his pusillanimity and the judge's distaste was not.

'It's all a damned lie,' she shouted, 'I never had that little shit to tea and I never used the name Lockhart fucking Flawse in any of my books.'

'But it's there in Song of… ' Mr Shortstead began. 'Shut up,' said Miss Goldring. 'If it's there you must have put it there because it wasn't in the manuscript I sent you.'

'You're quite sure about that?' said Mr Widdershins, looking for some ray of hope in an otherwise hopeless case.

'I swear by Almighty God,' said Miss Goldring with a vehemence that was convincing, 'that I have never ever heard the name Flawse in my life, let alone used it in a book.'

'May we see a copy of the manuscript?' said Mr Widdershins, and Mr Shortstead sent for it. The name Flawse was there in bold pica type.

'What do you say to that?' said Mr Widdershins. Miss Goldring said a great deal and most of it true. Mr Shortstead said little and all of it true.

'Then we shall contest the authenticity of this document,' said Mr Widdershins. 'Are we all agreed on that?'

Miss Goldring was. Mr Shortstead wasn't. 'That is the manuscript we received,' he maintained,

'That was not, is not, nor ever will be the manuscript I dictated. It's a fucking forgery.'

'You're absolutely sure about that?' said Mr Widdershins.

'I swear by Almighty God…'

'Very well. We will contest the case on those grounds, that this document which came into the possession of Mr Shortstead was not the original manuscript you wrote.'

'Precisely,' said Miss Goldring, 'I swear by Almighty God…'

She was still swearing by Almighty God and by lesser deities when she entered the witness box the following day to be cross-examined by an ebullient Mr Fescue. Mr Gibling and Mr Gibling could hardly contain themselves. In fact Mr Gibling the Elder couldn't at all and had to leave the court hurriedly while she was still in the witness box.

'Now Miss Magster,' Mr Fescue began before being stopped by the judge.

'I understood the witness's name to be Miss Genevieve Goldring,' he said, 'now you address her as Miss Magster. Which is it?'

'Miss Genevieve Goldring is an alias,' said Mr Fescue, 'her real…' He was interrupted by a squawk from the witness box.

'Genevieve Goldring is my pen name, my nom de plume,' she said.

Mr Justice Plummery studied the feather in her hat with disgust. 'No doubt,-' he said, 'no doubt your profession requires an assortment of names. The court requires your real one.'

'Miss Magster,' said Miss Goldring, sullenly aware that this revelation would disillusion a large section of her public. 'But I am best known to my admirers as Miss Genevieve Goldring.'

'Again no doubt,' said the judge, 'but then from what I have gathered your admirers have peculiar tastes.'

Mr Fescue took his cue from the judge. 'I am prepared to call you Genevieve Goldring if you so prefer,' he said, 'it is not my intention to harm your professional reputation. Now is it or is it not true that in Song of the Heart you describe the character named Flawse as being addicted to what is known among prostitutes and their clients as bondage and flage?' 'I did not write Song of the Heart,' said Miss Goldring.

'But I thought you had already admitted writing it,' said the judge. 'Now I hear…'

What he heard was a tirade from the witness box on the iniquities of publishers and editors. When she had finished, Mr Fescue turned to Mr Justice Plummery. 'Would it not be as well to examine the original manuscript and compare it with others submitted by the defendant to her publishers, m'lud?' he asked.

'The defendants have no objections,' said Mr Widdershins, and the Court adjourned once again.

Later that afternoon two experts on graphology and typography testified that the manuscript of Song of the Heart had been written, typed and produced by precisely the same machine as King's Closet and Maid of the Moors, both books written by Miss Goldring. Mr Fescue continued his cross-examination of the defendant.

'Having established beyond all possible doubt that you wrote Song of the Heart,' he said, 'is it not also true that you were and are acquainted with the plaintiff, Mr Lockhart Flawse?'