Jane Gardam - Old Filth

“No. Let me do this one,” he said. “I let you in for it. Only young once.”

Remembering the old fossil who’d thought she was past the age of childbearing, she said, “Why are you still in your clothes?”

When they went back to Oliver’s mother the following morning Vanessa was surprised to find how disappointed she was that the old chap was no longer there. The hammock, which had stood out all night in the dew, now hung empty and Claire, still in her dressing-gown, was standing looking at it.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s gone. I couldn’t keep him, although it’s Sunday and he’ll have a terrible journey. He asked me to say goodbye to you. Now I do hope” (untruthfully) “that you’ll stay for lunch?”

“Yes, we’ve brought it,” said Oliver, smiling about. “Supermarket.”

“We’ll have to stay, anyway,” said Vanessa, “until Oliver’s taken the hammock down. And what about that umbrella business in the garage? I said it was too big when he bought it. Shall we get it changed for you?”

Claire blinked. “How very kind of you. As a matter of fact the church could do with it. For fêtes.”

(Oh, Ma — oh, Ma! Don’t push her.) Oliver started to fling things out of bags and into the microwave. (Keep it cool. Keep off the Vicar!)

“I met your Vicar yesterday,” said Vanessa.

“I’m afraid he’s all over the place,” said Claire.

They eyed each other.

“Oh, and by the way,” said Claire, when they began to go. “Would you take this parcel with you? I think it’s only recipe books. Eddie wanted me to have them. His wife’s. She never used them. I don’t want them. They were meant for someone else. Betty was a dreadful cook, so they won’t be thrilling, but they’d be her mother’s. Quite historic. Old Raj puddings from Shanghai. Tapioca.”

“Ma, I’ll put them in the bin.”

“No,” said Vanessa, “I’d like them. Thanks.”

And back again in Wandsworth where it was dark and the velvet curtains shrouded the windows with Interior Designer bobbles — I’m not sure I like Victorian stuff any more, thought Oliver — rain had begun to fall. “I think we’re getting stuck in the nineties,” he called through to the kitchen where Vanessa was scuffling about. “You know, we could get a manor house in Yorkshire for this. Commute from York. What’s happening?”

“The recipe books,” she called back. “But it’s not recipe books, it’s a box. It has gold clasps on it, and a drawer in it and — oh, good God.”

Out of the box showered jewels. Gold chains, brooches, earrings. They glimmered on the kitchen table.

“Look!” she said. “Look at the jade! Look at these blue things. Look — look at this!” Out of a plush bag fell a magnificent rope of pearls. “Oliver! These aren’t recipe books. Here’s a note.”

Dear Claire [it said], I’ve given the recipe books to Babs. Betty wanted you to have the trinkets. They’ll need cleaning and restringing and so on. Some of them she hadn’t worn for years. But they’re very much the real thing. The pearls were given to me long ago. Eddie.

“But I can’t have these. I can’t possibly keep them. There’s thousands of pounds here. Thousands! Look — Aspreys 1940! Look at this jade ring — it’s like an egg! Oliver!”

“I’ll ring mother.”

“She’s delighted,” he came back saying, “and you’re to keep them.”

“Did she say singular or plural ‘you’?”

“Shall I ask her?”

“Not yet. Let me think. No — I don’t have to think. I won’t have them. They’ll think that’s why I married you.”

“Come on,” he said. “It’s not going to be in the papers. Nobody’s to know we’ve got them but me.”

“I never wear jewellery.” She stroked the gold adoringly, the jade ring.

“You could change.”

“I never change. Was that old Eddie out in the East a lot, Ollie? Oh — Ollie!” She had seen the signature on the note and the letter-heading, for frugal Filth was still using up his old Chambers writing paper. “It says here, Sir Edward Feathers .”

“Yes. That’s him. Cousin Ed. Ridiculous name.”

“But Oliver, Edward Feathers is Old Filth.”

“I hope not.”

“Oliver, Old Filth is a legend. At the Bar. I thought he’d died years ago. He was a wonderful advocate. He had a stammer.”

“A stammer? Yes, well, Eddie does sometimes make odd noises.”

“Oliver — it was Old Filth . Of Hong Kong. And he became a wonderful judge,” and she began to moan.

“What’s so dreadful?”

“I told him all about the Bar. And how easy it was to pass the Bar exams. And I asked him if he’d always practised in Dorset. Oh, Oliver!”

“Vannie, I have never seen you so discomposed.”

“I want to die.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes, of course. But, oh, Oliver !”

Filth was invited to the wedding six months later but could not remember Vanessa and could not think whom he knew in Bournemouth. The groom’s name rang no bell. Some relative? Was he Claire’s? But he refused the invitation. Claire, true to form (and because she had not been told of Betty’s funeral), did not get in touch. She attended the wedding, the Vicar driving her. He did not officiate but enjoyed the fun and talked about sin to Vanessa’s mother. Babs turned up with her hair short and blood-red. She and the Vicar got on famously and danced the night away.

And Claire waved the pair off to Thailand, hoping the baby wouldn’t be born there, though they can do wonders with premature babies now.

Vanessa gave Claire the rope of pearls she’d worn to the altar to look after until she returned.

Claire took care of her heart to be sure of seeing the grandchild.

She wrote to tell Filth of the birth three months later. Edward, they were calling him. Edward George.

Thus is the world peopled.

The smoking-room of the Inner Temple, almost deserted. It is much re-furbished: easy chairs stand about. Portraits of distinguished former Benchers on the walls, the one of Mr. Attlee gaunt and glazed — seeming to be wringing his hands. One wing chair has its back to the rest and Mr. Attlee seems to be looking down at it. Filth is in the chair half-asleep. Post-prandial. No one can see him. Enter the Queen’s Remembrancer and the Purveyor of Seals and Ordinances.

The Queen’s Remembrancer: He must have gone.

The Purveyor of Seals and Ordinances: To get his hair cut?

QR: Possibly. Very great surprise to see him again.

PS&O: Looks well. Amazing physique still. Nothing ever been wrong with him.

QR: Nothing ever did go wrong for him.

PS&O: Nothing much ever happened to him. Except success.

QR: There’s talk of a rather mysterious War, you know. Didn’t fight.

PS&O: A conchie?

QR: Good God, no. Some crack-up. He had a stammer.

PS&O: Pretty brave to go on to the Bar then.

QR: Remarkable. He joined a good regiment. It’s in Who’s Who . The Gloucesters. He had something to do with the Royal family.

PS&O: Had he indeed!

QR: And there was something else. Someone gave him a push upstairs somewhere. Or out East. There’s always something a bit dicey about that circuit. A lot of people you can’t really know socially but you have to pretend to.

PS&O: Betty was very O.K. though. Don’t you think? Don’t you think? There was of course Veneering. Veneering and Betty. Aha!

QR: What do the likes of us know, creeping round the Woolsack at Home and round the Inns of Court?

PS&O: “What should they know of England

Who only England know.”