Old Filth - Jane Gardam [53]
“Good evening, sir, staying the night? Out you get, leave the key, I’ll park it. Any luggage? Nasty weather!”
Filth stepped in to a black-and-white marble hall with a grand staircase and portraits of judges in dubious bright oils hanging all the way down it. How very odd to be here. Yes, there was one room left. Yes, there was dinner. Yes, there was a bar.
Filth removed his coat in the bedroom and regarded the two single beds, both populous with teddy bears. A foot-massager of green plastic lay by the bedside and a globe of goldfish with instructions for feeding them (“Guests are asked to confine themselves to one pinch”—was it hemp?). There were no towels in the bathroom but a great many plastic ducks. The noble height of the room that had in the past seen scores of judicial heads on the pillow seemed another frightening joke. I suppose I don’t know much about hotels now, he thought and had a flashback of the black towels and white telephones and linen sheets of Hong Kong.
For the first time in many years he did not change his shirt for dinner but stepped quickly back into the hall where the eyes of the old buggers on the staircase, in their wigs and scarlet, gave him a sense of his secure past. Glad I got out of the country though. No Circuits in Hong Kong. No getting stuck in luxury here for weeks on end with the likes of Fiscal-Smith. He wondered where the name had come from. Hadn’t thought of the dear old bore for years.
Good heavens.
Fiscal-Smith was still here. He was sitting in the bar in a vast leather armchair and as usual he was without a glass in his hand, waiting for someone to buy him a drink.
“Evening, Filth,” said Fiscal-Smith. (Ye gods, thought Filth, there’s something funny going on here.) “No idea you’d be here. Thought you’d retire in Hong Kong. How’s Betty?”
“We retired and came Home years ago,” said Filth, sitting down carefully in a second leather throne.
“Oh, so did I, so did I,” said Fiscal-Smith. “I retired up here though.”
“Really.”
“Got myself a little estate. Nobody wants them now—it’s the fumes. It was very cheap.”
“I see.”
“Or they assume there are fumes. Actually I am out on the moors. Shooting rights. Everything.”
“How is . . . ?” Filth could not remember whether Fiscal-Smith had ever had a wife. It seemed unlikely. “ . . . the Bar up here these days?”
Fiscal-Smith was looking meaningfully over at the Claridges lad, who was hovering about and responded with a matey wave.
“Have a drink,” said Filth, giving in, signalling to the boy and ordering whiskeys.
“Don’t be too long, sir,” said the boy. “Dining-room closes in half an hour.”
“Yes. Yes. I must have dinner. Long drive today.” He was beginning to feel better though. Warmth, whiskey, familiar jargon. “Are you staying the night here?” he asked Fiscal-Smith.
“I don’t usually. I go home. Always a chance that someone might turn up from the old days. Very good of you. Thank you. I’d enjoy dinner.”
They munched. Conversation waned
“Fancy sort of food nowadays,” said the ancient judge. “Seem to paint the sauces on the plates with a brush.”
The waitress patted his shoulder and shouted with laughter. “You’re meant to lick ’em up. Shall I keep you some tiramisu?”
“What on earth is that?”
“No idea,” said Filth, his eyelids drooping.
“Trifle,” said the waitress. “You’re nothing now, if you haven’t tried tiramisu.”
“Is this usual?” asked Filth, reviving a little with coffee.
“What—trifle? Yes, it’s on all the time.”
“No. I mean the—familiarity. They’re very matey. I never worked the Northern Circuit.”
“It’s not mateyness.”
“Well, it’s not exactly respect.” Filth’s mind presented him with Betty ringing for the invisible and silent maids. He suddenly yearned for that sycophantic time in his life, like a boy thinking of his birthday parties. “They’re very insensitive. And I can’t understand the teddy bears. I always detested teddy bears.”
“What teddy bears?”
“The beds are