Rumpole Rests His Case Read Free Page B

British Legion.’
    â€˜And I’m sure, next Poppy Day, they’ll appreciate what you’ve done for the church tower.’
    He looked at me for a long minute in silence, and I thought that if this scene had been taking place in a back room in Soho there might, quite soon, have been the flash of a knife. Instead, his hand went to an inside pocket, but it produced nothing more lethal than a cheque book.
    â€˜While you’re in a giving mood,’ I said, ‘the Rectory’s in desperate need of central heating.’
    â€˜This is bloody blackmail!’ Dicko Perducci, now known as Donald Compton, said.
    â€˜Well,’ I told him, ‘you should know.’
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    Christmas was over. The year turned, stirred itself and opened its eyes on a bleak January. Crimes were committed, arrests were made and the courtrooms were filled, once again, with the sound of argument. I went down to the Old Bailey on a trifling matter of fixing the date of a trial before Mrs Justice Erskine-Brown. As I was leaving, the usher came and told me that the Judge wanted to see me in her private room on a matter of urgency.
    Such summonses always fill me with apprehension and a vague feeling of guilt. What had I done? Got the date of the trial hopelessly muddled? Addressed the Court with my trousers carelessly unzipped? I was relieved when the learned Phillida greeted me warmly and even offered me a glass of sherry, poured from her own personal decanter. ‘It was so kind of you to offer, Rumpole,’ she said unexpectedly.
    â€˜Offer what?’ I was puzzled.
    â€˜You told us how much you adored the traditional British pantomime.’
    â€˜So I did.’ For a happy moment I imagined Her Ladyship as Principal Boy, her shapely legs encased in black tights, her neat little wig slightly askew, slapping her thigh and calling out, in bell-like tones, ‘Cheer up, Rumpole, Portia’s not far away.’
    â€˜The twins are looking forward to it enormously.’
    â€˜Looking forward to what?’
    â€˜Aladdin at the Tufnell Park Empire. I’ve got the tickets for the nineteenth of Jan. You do remember promising to take them, don’t you?’
    â€˜Well, of course.’ What else might I have said after the fifth glass of the Erskine-Brown St Emillion? ‘I’d love to be of the party. And will old Claude be buying us a dinner afterwards?’
    â€˜I really don’t think you should go round calling people “old”, Rumpole.’ Phillida now looked miffed, and I downed the sherry before she took it into her head to deprive me of it. ‘Claude’s got us tickets for Pavarotti. L’Elisir d‘Amore. You might buy the children a burger after the show. Oh, and it’s not far from us on the Tube. It really was sweet of you to invite them.’
    At which she smiled at me and refilled my glass in a way which made it clear she was not prepared to hear further argument.
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    It all turned out better than I could have hoped. Tristan and Isolde, unlike their Wagnerian namesakes, were cheerful, reasonably polite and seemed only too anxious to dissociate themselves, as far as possible, from the old fart who was escorting them. At every available opportunity they would touch me for cash and then scamper off to buy ice cream, chocolates, sandwiches or Sprite. I was left in reasonable peace to enjoy the performance.
    And enjoy it I did. Aladdin was a personable young woman with an upturned nose, a voice which could have been used to wake up patients coming round from their anaesthetics, and memorable thighs. Uncle Abanazer was played, Isolde told me, by an actor known as a social worker with domestic problems in a long-running television series. Wishy and Washy did sing to electric guitars (deafeningly amplified) but Widow Twankey, played by a certain Jim Diamond, was all a Dame should be, a nimble little cockney, fitted up with a sizeable false bosom, a