In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [81]
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ But Rose was beginning to blush.
Flo was delighted, and pressed on: ‘You know as well as everyone else, he was getting fifty, sixty pounds a month along your street, for shutting his mouth about the black market stuff for the restaurants – all that butter? All that eggs and stuff? And I didn’t see Rose running to tell anyone, oh no, you was thinking of marrying him.’
Rose was really distressed. She said to me: ‘Well, now you’ll think bad of me. But you have all those ideas about our police – I’ve heard you, and I didn’t say nothing, because all you foreigners are the same, like my Canadian boy. But the police take this and that on the side, my Froggy wasn’t nothing special.’
‘That’s what I’m saying,’ said Flo, ‘So why should you be so high and mighty about a little fib for a friend in the Courts?’
‘Because I am.’
‘Well, I don’t hold it against you. But when I think of what the lies were that the police said about your little brother so that he got to go to prison.’
‘Flo,’ said Rose, desperate.
‘What’s all this?’ I said.
Flo glanced at me, saw Rose in tears, exclaimed ‘Ah, my Lord, Dan’ll give it to me now,’ and rushed out of the room.
‘I didn’t want you to know, Flo promised not to tell you.’
‘What?’
‘Because you’d think bad of me. Because my little brother’s turned out bad, but he’s the only one of the kids that did.’
‘I don’t see why you should think that.’
‘If you don’t you’ve got funny ideas, but you can’t help it. But now Flo’s told you, I’ll tell you proper. My little brother, he got into trouble – he was fourteen, and he was in with a bad lot of kids. He got into trouble over and over, and they put him on probation, and we had those nosey-parkers at us all the time. But the cops had it in for him. And I’m not saying they weren’t right, because he was a proper little devil, cheeky all the time. So one night he was with the gang, but he got home early while they did a job. I know he did, because it was me who gave him his supper and saw him to bed. We was sleeping in the same room then, so I know he was asleep when the job was being done. But the coppers said he was with the rest, and so he was sent to Borstal.’
‘But how could they when you knew he was with you?’
‘It’s no good arguing with them, you’d know that if you wasn’t a foreigner. They go into Court and tell any lie they fancy, and the magistrate always believes them. Well, the way I looked at it was this: if I spoke up for my little brother, they wouldn’t believe me anyway. But if he went to the Reform for a bit, it might settle him down. And, besides, my mother was ill anyway about then, and he was right out of her control. But I’ve felt bad about it ever since. Because it didn’t do him any good. He ran away once, and was took back again. And he’s coming out next month and my mother’s marrying this man I told you about, and my brother doesn’t like him, and there’ll be trouble, mark my words, So I want him to come here and live, and Flo’s against it because it means the cops’ll have their eye on this house. But she thinks, if she lets him come here, then I’ll tell lies in Court, and I don’t know which way to turn.’
At this point Dan came in. He was scowling at Flo, who was near tears.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And has she told you why we need witnesses? Has she told you that?’
‘But I didn’t mean it,’ said Flo, wailing.
‘You never mean it. They put her into the witness box. That was the time of the ladder. And they said, did you hear your husband saying he would kill Mrs Black, and Flo here pipes up and says: Oh, yes, and he nearly killed her right then, shaking her so hard.’ At the memory, Dan’s veins swelled up dark in his forehead; and he clenched his teeth at Flo.
‘But it was true,’ said Flo, through tears. ‘I saw you. I thought her time had come, the old bitch.’
Dan grinned sarcastically. ‘You see?’ he said to me and Rose. ‘You see?’ He gave Flo a light slap across the cheek. ‘Everybody in the Court laughed. And because my wife can’t keep her tongue still I was bound over.’
‘She can’t help