In Pursuit of the English - Doris Lessing [91]
‘It is correct,’ said the Judge, ‘that the witness did not claim to have heard the noise herself.’
Counsel fussed a little, and dismissed Rose, who slid into the bench beside me, clutched at my hand, and sat breathing deeply, trembling all over, her eyes shut.
There was a feeling of inconclusiveness in the air as the old lady went to the witness-box. The Judge leafed through his papers, and it seemed as if he might say, ‘People living together should use tolerance,’ as the last Judge had; and bind everyone over for a further period.
The old lady entered the witness-box as if the act of doing so was a protest of innocence. She took the oath with trembling fervour. She said she had never insulted Flo because she was a foreigner; and in the next breath that she would not have foreigners turning her out of her house. She said that as a decent British woman she never swore; and then delivered a fluent imitation of Dan at his best.
‘That will do,’ said the Judge frowning, so that the people in the Court who were smiling composed their faces.
He went on leafing over his notes, in a worried way, looking for some final conclusive point on which to deliver judgment. Besides, what could be done with the old people? But then, if they were undesirable, so, clearly, were Dan and Flo. The silence continued. Then the Judge made a gesture and the two Counsels both gave short summing-up speeches, for form’s sake, for it was clear that the Judge was not listening. He was peering at the old people and at Flo and Dan as if to say: ‘Must you behave like this?’
Suddenly the old lady shot to her feet and announced loudly: ‘They are all in conspiracy against me.’
The old man painfully stretched up to pull her to her seat, but she shook him off, so violently he slid along the bench in a heap, and pointed to our lawyer and our Counsel, shouting: ‘They were telling the landlord to tell lies. I heard them.’
‘Please sit down,’ said the Judge.
‘In that room,’ shrieked the old lady, pointing a trembling finger across the Court. ‘They were there, I heard them, they were saying they must tell lies, the truth doesn’t matter, that’s what they said.’
Now the Judge looked really angry. ‘You can’t say things like that,’ he said.
The old lady burst into shrieks and oaths, dancing up and down between the wooden benches, and pointing at various legal gentlemen around her. ‘He – that one – look! Lies! Lies! Lies! Justice, British justice, it’s all Jews and foreigners, it’s a plot, it’s a conspiracy …’
An official pushed the old lady down in her seat. In a minute, the whole thing was over. The Judge, at express speed, gave the old people a month to find somewhere to live. Then, feeling perhaps that his manner was not in the highest traditions of legal solemnity, he pulled himself together and made a short but admirable summing-up, which was understood by neither of the parties, because the words he used were out of their experience.
In fact. Dan and Flo believed that the case had gone against them, because of the gravity of the Judge’s manner. And it was certainly impressive to think that if the old lady had not suddenly gone crazy, the Judge would, at that moment, and with equal ease, be summing up in the opposite way.
When he said: ‘We recommend both sides, for the limited amount of time left, to use their best efforts in the interests of mutual harmony.’ Flo said crossly, ‘Harmony yourself,’ in a voice which reached him. He looked puzzled, since he had just put their point of view: ‘ – people who have behaved, perhaps not quite as they normally would have done, if not under severe provocation by a couple who clearly need asylum in a place run by sympathetic people.’ Dan nodded emphatically at the word asylum, and tapped his forehead, muttering: He says they’re nuts, so why is he against us?
Outside Rose pointed out that the case was theirs.
‘Oh, no,’ said Flo sorrowfully, ‘he was awfully cross.’
We had to call over the lawyer, in order to assure Flo