that.”
“You mean Miriam’s husband says that.” Miriam was Lisbeth’s Jewish friend. Her husband was a National MP.
Lawrence was known as “the red-headed lawyer” or “the red-headed folklorist” for his ability to sway juries. In Cornford that was a compliment.
I had without thinking taken the artichoke hearts out of the fridge. I put them back again.
“You’d better do the brussel sprouts. They need eating,” she said.
“I hate brussel sprouts.”
I considered making pasta with a mushroom and ricotta sauce, but the ricotta smelled sour. I thought of heating a curry but was so fed up I did sausages and mash. I took out a couple of bottles of wine, threw some vegies in the whizzer with pieces of leftover sausage and fried it up with lashings of soy sauce. Lisbeth hates soy sauce. I cut some slices of dark bread and that was our meal. It was a dreadful evening. We both drank too much. Lisbeth began in the kitchen while I was still cooking. She berated Lawrence while I tried to put away angry thoughts and said nothing.
“I wish you’d say something,” she said. “When youdo that to your mouth, you look like a prune. Of course Lawrence invents stories to get his clients off! The fact that you won’t say anything is an admission in itself. Or do you know something I don’t? What do you want soy sauce for? I know you don’t like to talk when you’re cooking.”
“Neither do you.”
“That makes two of us. Of course he’s going to appeal. All right, good luck to him. But Lawrence is not to involve you again. Just because we’re retired, people think we’ve nothing to do. I mean it. Last time you were on a case that went to appeal you ended up in bed, you looked like a ghost. And you lost. Charlie, we’re not getting any younger.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be seventy soon. Sixty-eight next month.”
“No. Sixty-seven.”
“You’ve been invited to Florence next year. I’ve been looking forward to that. You said wives were welcome. What I want to say is this. I can tell what you’re thinking from here. It’s pathetic. It will be months out of your life, months, if it’s a day.”
“But Lawrence hasn’t said a word about appealing!”
“He will. Trust me. If he does, and you get involved, that’s it as far as I’m concerned. I’m leaving.”
It would have been fatal to put up my hand and attempt a defence. Marriages far more benign than ours have foundered on less. So I opened another bottle while Lisbeth cleared away, and went to bed in a pickle.
FIVE
I MUST HAVE dreamed. I got up about midnight and went to the loo and came back to bed without disturbing Lisbeth, and slept again. I awoke about four and lay there next to her feeling uneasy, not knowing if I had been dreaming, but knowing that if I lay still and didn’t turn over or switch on the lamp the dream might return to me; and it did. A stranger with a strong smell of humankind came up to me in a crowd and took my hand. But immediately this was superseded by a scene in which my mother appeared looking at me with a pleading expression in her eyes, and which I put away by turning on to my right side and switching my reading light on. The dream of my mother is a recurring one. It is accompanied by the odours of the small soot-blackened kitchen in the house where I grew up, smellsof cooking and smells of damp and laundry soap from a bucket in the scullery where my father used to wash his socks, and medicinal odours from the bedroom where my mother died, tinctures of lavender and smelling salts mingled with the sharp pungency of ammonia. I don’t like any of this, so I put the dream away.
The man who offered me his hand was tiny, a little leaf-hopper man but strong and wiry. He wore a hat shaped like an abandoned rissole. It smelled dreadful. He had pale flickering eyes, full of interest, and he put his palm into mine in a tentative way like a paw, rubbing with his fingers and exploring the skin, chafing and pawing it
“You mean Miriam’s husband says that.” Miriam was Lisbeth’s Jewish friend. Her husband was a National MP.
Lawrence was known as “the red-headed lawyer” or “the red-headed folklorist” for his ability to sway juries. In Cornford that was a compliment.
I had without thinking taken the artichoke hearts out of the fridge. I put them back again.
“You’d better do the brussel sprouts. They need eating,” she said.
“I hate brussel sprouts.”
I considered making pasta with a mushroom and ricotta sauce, but the ricotta smelled sour. I thought of heating a curry but was so fed up I did sausages and mash. I took out a couple of bottles of wine, threw some vegies in the whizzer with pieces of leftover sausage and fried it up with lashings of soy sauce. Lisbeth hates soy sauce. I cut some slices of dark bread and that was our meal. It was a dreadful evening. We both drank too much. Lisbeth began in the kitchen while I was still cooking. She berated Lawrence while I tried to put away angry thoughts and said nothing.
“I wish you’d say something,” she said. “When youdo that to your mouth, you look like a prune. Of course Lawrence invents stories to get his clients off! The fact that you won’t say anything is an admission in itself. Or do you know something I don’t? What do you want soy sauce for? I know you don’t like to talk when you’re cooking.”
“Neither do you.”
“That makes two of us. Of course he’s going to appeal. All right, good luck to him. But Lawrence is not to involve you again. Just because we’re retired, people think we’ve nothing to do. I mean it. Last time you were on a case that went to appeal you ended up in bed, you looked like a ghost. And you lost. Charlie, we’re not getting any younger.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be seventy soon. Sixty-eight next month.”
“No. Sixty-seven.”
“You’ve been invited to Florence next year. I’ve been looking forward to that. You said wives were welcome. What I want to say is this. I can tell what you’re thinking from here. It’s pathetic. It will be months out of your life, months, if it’s a day.”
“But Lawrence hasn’t said a word about appealing!”
“He will. Trust me. If he does, and you get involved, that’s it as far as I’m concerned. I’m leaving.”
It would have been fatal to put up my hand and attempt a defence. Marriages far more benign than ours have foundered on less. So I opened another bottle while Lisbeth cleared away, and went to bed in a pickle.
FIVE
I MUST HAVE dreamed. I got up about midnight and went to the loo and came back to bed without disturbing Lisbeth, and slept again. I awoke about four and lay there next to her feeling uneasy, not knowing if I had been dreaming, but knowing that if I lay still and didn’t turn over or switch on the lamp the dream might return to me; and it did. A stranger with a strong smell of humankind came up to me in a crowd and took my hand. But immediately this was superseded by a scene in which my mother appeared looking at me with a pleading expression in her eyes, and which I put away by turning on to my right side and switching my reading light on. The dream of my mother is a recurring one. It is accompanied by the odours of the small soot-blackened kitchen in the house where I grew up, smellsof cooking and smells of damp and laundry soap from a bucket in the scullery where my father used to wash his socks, and medicinal odours from the bedroom where my mother died, tinctures of lavender and smelling salts mingled with the sharp pungency of ammonia. I don’t like any of this, so I put the dream away.
The man who offered me his hand was tiny, a little leaf-hopper man but strong and wiry. He wore a hat shaped like an abandoned rissole. It smelled dreadful. He had pale flickering eyes, full of interest, and he put his palm into mine in a tentative way like a paw, rubbing with his fingers and exploring the skin, chafing and pawing it
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