In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [89]
By the time Dan had been dismissed for the second time, the Judge was in a bad temper. Details of emptied slop bowls, dirty lavatories, filth thrown downstairs, it was an offence to have to listen to them.
At first sight, Flo was a welcome change in the witness-box; a starched black Britannia, the embodiment of wrathful virtue. But as soon as she began to answer questions, it was a different matter, for the blood of her Italian grandmother responded at once to the drama of the situation; and our Counsel, with the expression of a man hurrying over the last few yards to safety, kept cutting her short, for fear of what might emerge.
Then the other Counsel took over. As he stood there in his dull black, the knobbly wig kept slipping backwards, exposing a large sweating expanse of red scalp, and he glanced continually at the notes in his hand, like a dull pupil in class. It was not that he had a bad case, in fact I think both our Counsel and lawyer expected him to win it; but he looked as if he hadn’t had a good one for years, and had forgotten the habit of confidence. And his manner was even more ponderously sarcastic than with Dan. With each supercilious phrase, Flo got more upset; she was already off balance because our own Counsel had shown no friendly emotion; and this man’s display of thin and peevish hostility caused her voice to rise and her gestures to enlarge.
‘Surely,’ grated Counsel, ‘no reasonable person would put pepper on tulips?’
Flo shrugged. ‘That’s what I keep saying all the time, dear.’
‘You say …’ and Counsel consulted his notes, for the effectiveness of the gesture, ‘that she had a dish of pepper. Now what do you mean by that?’ Flo stared at him. ‘A dish of pepper,’ he creaked; and stood smiling with prepared amusement.
‘Well, if you don’t know what I mean I can’t help you.’ Flo held an imaginary pepper-pot over the edge of the witness-box, and shook it hard.
‘You mean a pepper-pot perhaps?’ smiled the Counsel.
‘I don’t mind what you call it, dear, it’s all the same to me.’
‘Mrs Bolt,’ said the Judge severely, ‘you really must not call Learned Counsel dear.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Proceed.’
After a pause Counsel said: ‘You will admit that pepper is very expensive.’
Flo raised her hands. ‘God knows,’ she exclaimed, ‘the way prices are going up it’s a wonder we are alive to tell the tale.’
‘I asked you if pepper was not very expensive.’
Flo stared again. ‘That’s what I said.’
‘Just exactly how much does pepper cost?’
‘I don’t rightly know, because I’m still using the pepper my friend from Edgware gave me when she had the blitz on her shop.’
‘Mrs Bolt,’ drawled the Judge, peering over the edge of his table like an irritated tortoise, ‘do please answer the questions put to you.’
Flo blushed at the injustice of it. ‘But I did answer. He said, how much does pepper cost, and I said I don’t know because…’
The Judge said reprovingly to Counsel: ‘I really do think the price of pepper is irrelevant to the point at issue.’
‘I was trying to establish a point, my lord.’
‘I think I can see the point you were trying to establish.’
At this evidence of the Judge’s short temper, our Counsel visibly brightened; but Flo was still miserable. ‘I was only trying to tell him because he …’
‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ said the Judge.
After a long pause. Counsel pulled himself together for another onslaught. ‘What time of the year was this?’ he demanded cunningly.
‘Time of year? Tulip time.’
‘You don’t know the exact month?’
‘The time tulips bloom,’ said Flo, with irritation. ‘Spring. Don’t you know the time tulips flower?’
‘And when you saw pepper on the tulips, what did you do?’
‘Well, dear. I went out to have a look at it.’
‘Mrs Bolt, will you kindly not refer to Counsel as dear, I’ve told you already.’
‘Ah, my lord, it slipped out, and I’m sorry, sir.’
‘How do you know it was pepper?’
‘How did I know? It was red, like pepper.’
‘Red? Red pepper?’
‘Paprika,’ said Flo, patient but exasperated.
‘Oh!’ He