In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [80]
The rent collecting was a weekly drama. Every Friday at about six. Dan looked meaningfully at the clock, set his teeth and climbed the stairs, followed by Flo, Aurora and jack, Dan banged on their door and shouted. Silence, He banged again, threatening lawyers, asylums, court cases. Unpredictably, perhaps after five minutes, perhaps after fifty, the door opened an inch, and a handful of silver scattered into the hall, followed by a scream of rage. The door slammed, and continued to shake and vibrate as the old lady hammered on it with both fists and shouted that he must take himself off her premises. Sometimes Dan grinned, shrugged and pointed an ominous forefinger to his head. Sometimes his face swelled purple with anger, and he pounded on the door till he was sobbing with exertion.
Worse than stews and flat-irons was to come, One day Dan was in the yard with Aurora. A heavy ladder rested against the wall near the old couple’s back window, where he had been mending a drainpipe. The old lady leaned out and pushed down the ladder, which missed Aurora by a couple of inches. Dan went mad with rage; he replaced the ladder, bounded up it, and in the space of a few seconds was in the flat, shaking the old lady like a pillow and threatening to kill her. He was checked by the realization that the old man, supposed to be a co-villain with his wife, was seated all this time on the bed reading the newspaper. He did not even raise his eyes at the scuffle. Dan was so astounded that he dropped the old lady on the floor, gazed in a hypnotized way at the old man, and withdrew, shrugging and scratching his head. In the basement he said to Flo: ‘He’s madder than she is. He doesn’t even fight. He just sits there.’
The case went to Court, both sides claiming damages for assault, both being bound over for the second time.
Next, the old lady climbed down the ladder in full view of Flo and shook red pepper over a bed of Flo’s tulips.
Flo said: ‘I told the Judge she put pepper on my tulips once before and he bound us over. It isn’t fair. Dan shouted: Is this British Justice? and the Judge got mad. And the old lady said: We’ll get our rights in a British Court against the dirty foreigners. She meant me, because of my Italian grandmother. You should have seen her face when the Judge told her she was an old nuisance.’
‘He said you were a nuisance, too,’ commented Rose.
‘That was because he didn’t know about the potatoes on the stairs. Do you know – she rolls potatoes down the stairs hoping I’ll slip on them and break my neck. Well, I just pick them up and use them. But it’s not right, dear, is it? You’ll come and be witness for us, won’t you, sweetheart?’
‘But how can I be? I never see or hear them.’
Ah, my Lord, it’s not fair. Dan and me, we’ve been waiting to quarrel until you’re out of the house, and keeping ever so quiet so’s you’re not disturbed, and now you say you haven’t heard them.’
Rose said, speaking loudly as to one deaf: ‘Flo, I’m going to explain something to you. And you must listen careful.’
‘What, dear, what, darling? Why are you shouting at me, sweetheart?’
‘Because I want you to understand. Now there’s this oath, this thing they have in the Courts.’
‘Ah, my Lord, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I know about that.’
‘Yes? But you’re supposed to tell the truth in Court. That’s what the oath is, just telling the truth.’
‘But, Rose, you’re my friend.’
‘Flo, I’ve told you. I’m going to answer the questions just what I know. And that’s all.’
‘Me, too,’ I said.
‘But there’s no use your coming at all, because you didn’t see the pepper and the potatoes and the stew that missed me by half an inch.’
‘Or that great iron, neither, that Dan threw.’
Flo considered. She said with a sly look: ‘And there’s that policeman, that Froggy, you know about the police, dear, don’t you? And when did they tell