“Evening, Filth,” said Fiscal-Smith. (Ye gods, thought Filth, there’s something funny going on here.) “No idea you’d be here. Thought you’d retire in Hong Kong. How’s Betty?”
“We retired and came Home years ago,” said Filth, sitting down carefully in a second leather throne.
“Oh, so did I, so did I,” said Fiscal-Smith. “I retired up here though.”
“Really.”
“Got myself a little estate. Nobody wants them now — it’s the fumes. It was very cheap.”
“I see.”
“Or they assume there are fumes. Actually I am out on the moors. Shooting rights. Everything.”
“How is. .?” Filth could not remember whether Fiscal-Smith had ever had a wife. It seemed unlikely. “. . the Bar up here these days?”
Fiscal-Smith was looking meaningfully over at the Claridges lad, who was hovering about and responded with a matey wave.
“Have a drink,” said Filth, giving in, signalling to the boy and ordering whiskeys.
“Don’t be too long, sir,” said the boy. “Dining-room closes in half an hour.”
“Yes. Yes. I must have dinner. Long drive today.” He was beginning to feel better though. Warmth, whiskey, familiar jargon. “Are you staying the night here?” he asked Fiscal-Smith.
“I don’t usually. I go home. Always a chance that someone might turn up from the old days. Very good of you. Thank you. I’d enjoy dinner.”
They munched. Conversation waned
“Fancy sort of food nowadays,” said the ancient judge. “Seem to paint the sauces on the plates with a brush.”
The waitress patted his shoulder and shouted with laughter. “You’re meant to lick ’em up. Shall I keep you some tiramisu?”
“What on earth is that?”
“No idea,” said Filth, his eyelids drooping.
“Trifle,” said the waitress. “You’re nothing now, if you haven’t tried tiramisu.”
“Is this usual?” asked Filth, reviving a little with coffee.
“What — trifle? Yes, it’s on all the time.”
“No. I mean the — familiarity. They’re very matey. I never worked the Northern Circuit.”
“It’s not mateyness.”
“Well, it’s not exactly respect.” Filth’s mind presented him with Betty ringing for the invisible and silent maids. He suddenly yearned for that sycophantic time in his life, like a boy thinking of his birthday parties. “They’re very insensitive. And I can’t understand the teddy bears. I always detested teddy bears.”
“What teddy bears?”
“The beds are covered with them. Is it a local custom?”
“I’m afraid you are ahead of me, somewhere. But of course, yes, it’s different up here. Very nice people.”
“But you’re not local, Fiscal-Smith. Is there anybody to talk to? On your estate?”
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.