Jane Gardam - Old Filth

Fiscal-Smith took a second huge slice of cheese. “No. Not really. Sit there alone. I like it here though.” (Old Filth’s grown stuffy. Home Counties. How does Betty put up with him?) “They’re rude to your face but they boast about knowing you. House of Lords, and all that. It’s a compliment, but you have to understand it. Good friends at The Judges to an old bachelor.”

All but one of the lights were now switched off in the dining-room, where they were the only diners left. The waitress looked out from a peephole.

“Yes, we’ve finished, Dolly. I think I’ll stay the night. Too much wine for driving. ‘Ex-Judge drunk at wheel.’ Wouldn’t do.”

“Yes. Keep it within closed doors,” said Dolly. “But I don’t think there’s a room ready. The housekeeper’s gone off.”

“Twin beds in your room, Filth?”

“Well, I’m afraid. .

“Room One?” said the waitress. “Yes. Twin beds.”

“No,” said Filth in the final and first, utterly immovable decision of the day. “No. Sorry. I — snore.”

“Oh, then, we’ll find you somewhere, Lord Fiscal-Smith. Come along. The trouble will be bath-towels. I think she hides them.”

“Shan’t have a bath.” He tottered away on her arm. “Borrow your razor in the morning, Filth.”

“We can do a razor,” she said. “Did you say he was called Filth?”

She handed Fiscal-Smith over to the Claridges boy who was drinking a glass of milk in the hall.

When Filth lay down on one of his beds the room rocked gently round and round. “Pushing myself,” he said. “Heart attack. I dare say. Sir? Good. Hope it’s the finish. And I’m certainly not lending him my razor.”

Then, it was morning.

The goldfish were looking at his face on the pillow with inquisitive distaste. On the floor a heap of bears gave the impression of decadence. The bedside clock glared out 9.30 a.m. which filled him with shame, and he reached breakfast just in time.

“So sorry,” he said.

“That’s all right, dear. You need your sleep at your age.”

Far across the bright conservatory, where breakfast was served, bacon and eggs were being carried to Fiscal-Smith whose back was turned firmly away from all comers as he perused the Daily Telegraph . Filth changed his chair so that his back was also turned away from Fiscal-Smith. Outside, across the grey Teesside grass, stood magnificent oaks and, above them, a deep blue autumn sky and a hint of moorland, air and light. The Telegraph was beside Filth’s plate. He must have ordered it. Couldn’t read it. Not yet. Rice-Krispies.

“Oh dear no, thank you. Nothing cooked.”

“Oh, come on. Do you good.”

She brought bacon and eggs.

Why should I? thought Filth, petulant, and clattered down his knife and fork.

“I’m disappointed,” said the waitress, bringing coffee.

He drank it and looked at the oak trees and the light beyond.

Must get out of this wasteland. Not my sort of place at all. What was Babs doing here? What was I doing, coming to visit her? Rather frightening, what grief can uncover in you.

Don’t you think so, Betty? Just as well I wasn’t in the middle of a case when you went. But you’d have dealt with it. Got me through.

Remembering, then, that the cause of the grief was that she could no longer get him through anything, he gulped, shuddered, watched the oaks, as his eyes at last filled up with tears.

A hand came down on his shoulder but he did not turn. The hand was removed.

“So very sorry, old chap. So very sorry,” and Fiscal-Smith was gone.

It was some time later — breakfast still uneaten, Filth’s back the only sign of anyone in the room, silence from the kitchen — that the oaks began to return to their natural steadiness. Filth, his face wet, blew his nose, mopped with his napkin, took up the newspaper, opened it, shook it about. He found himself looking straight into Betty’s face.

Obituary.

Good gracious. Betty. No idea there’d be an obituary. And half a column. Second on the page. Good God: Red Cross; Barristers’ Benevolent Association; Bletchley Park. Dominant personality. Wife of — yes, it was Betty, all right. Fiscal-Smith must have been reading it. Good God— Betty ! They’ll never give me half a column. I’ve never done anything but work. Great traveller. Ambassadress. Chinese-speaking. Married and the dates. No children of the marriage.

He sat on. On and on. They cleared the table. They did not hurry him. On and on he sat. They changed the cloth. They said not a word.

At some point he began properly to weep. He wept silently behind his hands, sitting in this unknown place, uncared about, ignorant, bewildered, past it.

Much later they brought him, unasked, a tray of tea. When at last he had packed his case and paid his bill at the desk in the marble hall and was standing bleakly on the porch as the boy brought his car, he remembered that he had invited Fiscal-Smith to join him for last night’s dinner, and that this had not been on the bill.

“Don’t you worry, sir,” said the receptionist. “He’s paid it himself.”

She said no more, but both understood that this was a first. And that it was touching. It lifted Filth’s desolate heart.

He drove for an hour before addressing Betty again. “You never know where help’s coming from, do you? Yes. You’re right. I’m ten years older than yesterday and I look it.” (“ Fool ,” he yelled at a nervous little Volkswagen. “Do you want to be killed , woman?”) No more gadding about for a while.

“But stop worrying. I’ll get home. I’m a bloody good driver.” The car gave a wobble.

He thought of the hotel which loomed now much larger in his consciousness than the Babs business (Babs had always been potty) and he understood the goldfish, the bears, the box of Scrabble in the wardrobe, the tape deck and the vast television set in the room. They were an attempt to dispel the sombre judicial atmosphere of the place’s past. The seams of the Judges’ Lodging had exuded crime, wickedness, evil, folly and pain. All had been tossed about in conversation each night over far too much port. Jocose, over-confident judges.

Well, they have to be. Judges live with shadows behind them.

There are very good men among them. Mind you, I’d never have put Fiscal-Smith among those, the horrible old hangerand-flogger.

“Seems we were wrong, Betty,” he said, turning the car unthinkingly Eastward in the direction of the Humber bridge.

And on it sped for three hours, when he had to stop for petrol and saw signs for Cambridge.

Cambridge?

Why Cambridge? He was making for the Midlands and home in the South-West. He must have missed his turning. He seemed to be on the way to London. This road was called the M11 and it was taking its pitiless way between the wide green fields of — where? Huntingdonshire? Rutland? — don’t know anything about any of them. Claire lives somewhere about down here. Hainault. Never been. Must have the address somewhere. Hadn’t intended to come. Hadn’t consciously intended to come. Had quite enough. Saffron Walden? Nice name. Why are you going to see Claire? You haven’t seen her since — well, since Ma Didds.

Betty knew her. Betty saw her. Why must I? Wasn’t Babs enough?

He drew out in front of a Hungarian demon. Its hoot died slowly away, as at length it passed him, spitting wrath as he swayed into the slow lane. Mile after mile. Mile after mile. Fear no bigger than a child’s hand squeezed at his ribcage. “If it’s a heart attack, get on with it,” commanded Filth.

But he drew off the motorway and dawdled into a lane. There were old red-brick walls and silent mansions and a church. A by-passed village, like a by-passed heart. Not a café. Not a shop. He’d perhaps go and sit in the church for a while. Here it stood.