Last Friends (Old Filth Trilogy) (15 page)

Tonight would be the first Terry Veneering had no bed to go to. The landlady, so called, in Piccadilly Circus had said as he left the house that morning, ‘Oh, yes. There’ll be another man here tonight. I told him I thought you wouldn’t mind sharing’.

‘Well, you were wrong,’ he’d said, slamming upstairs, picking up his case, crashing out of the front door after leaving four shillings on the hall-stand.

Where to go? Think about it in the Law Library. He’d already been the rounds of the few people he knew in London. Might try MacPherson. Lived in Kensington somewhere with his mother. Thoroughly nice man. No side to him.

‘Hullo? Oh,
hullo
! So glad you’re in, Robert. It’s Terence. Yes, Veneering. Yes. Oh, thanks. Well of course I’m only joint top with Feathers. No—I haven’t actually met up with him lately. Listen Bobby, you once said if I was ever stuck for a bed in London—could I possible stay tonight? I’ve an interview for a place in Chambers around five o’ clock in Lincoln’s Inn and nowhere to sleep. I’d be gone by breakfast.’

Silence. Then ‘
Tomorrow
night is that, Terence?
Tomorrow
night?’

‘Well, actually tonight. My landlady told me this morning that she thought I wouldn’t mind sharing—with a stranger. So I . . . ’

‘Good God. That’s terrible. Of course you’re welcome. Delighted. I’ll just check with mother. We’re having a bit of a party here tonight. Scottish dancing. We’ve a piper coming. I don’t suppose you have the kilt in your luggage? No? Well, never mind. Can lend.’

‘Actually, I haven’t much luggage at all. Toothbrush sort of thing.’

‘We have some splendid people coming. Do you reel?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Never mind. I seem to remember that you play?’

‘No! Well, saxophone. Bit of Blues. Piano.’

‘Oh, well. Shame. Just come. Not too early or late. Mother has very early dinner and goes to bed at nine.’

‘Actually, could I come another time? I can’t be sure of times tonight—I mean this evening—you see. Depends on how long this interview’s going to last. I’m looking for a seat in Chambers—anywhere, of course will do.’

‘Where’s the interview?’

‘Oh, just general. Libel and slander. Nothing distinguished. Not sure where. It’s on a bit of paper. Tutor at Christ Church set it up.’

‘Be careful. Libel’s a vile life. Come some other time won’t you, Terence?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Oh—and do you sing? Madrigals! Next week . . . ?’

‘Not very well, Bobby.’

‘Oh, pity. I live at home here you know. Shan’t bother with Chambers just yet. Bit nostalgic for the old days after three years in the German nick. Picking up the old life . . . ’

* * *

Where would he sleep tonight?

Veneering crossed the Strand, the letter to little Fred in his pocket. He dropped it into a letter-box on the corner of Chancery Lane and thought of it being opened in the despoiled—and by him never re-visited—Cleveland Hills. It was late afternoon now and the fog had come down. He thought of Malta gleaming at dawn. Thought of Elsie’s jade bracelet, her creamy skin, the startlingly beautiful little boy, Harry. Veneering was wearing his only suit, his demob suit which was already getting shiny. Hideous. Cold. He was hungry.

Why in the name of God did he want a job as a working court-room lawyer? In a set of Chambers nobody had ever heard about? Because there were ten applicants and more for every vacancy and often war heroes and/or rich. Had to try everything that was offered. Otherwise—No Room at the Inn. Ha-ha.

He found the Chambers and walked in.

* * *

The Clerk—a very famous Clerk he had been told: Augustus, the king-maker—looked him up and down and said, ‘Oh yes. I remember. All right, I’ll see if he can see you. He’s very busy,’ and vanished, pretending to yawn.

Then, ‘Follow me.’

‘Mr. Veneering, sir, of Christ Church College, Oxford and new member of the Inner Temple, starred First, top of Bar Finals, introduced by old tutor, an old friend of these Chambers.’

The tall, dapper Head of Chambers, very scarlet about the face, shiny-lipped, found his way from among the crowd of young men, all drinking wine and shouting with laughter. ‘Mr.
Who
? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Mr. Veneering. Your tutor—he was mine, too, you know—I’m younger than I seem. How unbelievably young you all look now despite the recent conflict. I hear that you have travelled about the Globe? Showing the Flag? What a joy. All our troubles ended by the dropping of the splendid atomic bomb. Your—our—tutor never thought much of me you know, yet here I am at last proving myself useful to him. Soaking up the latent talent of our great College. He says you’re Russian? I don’t think—I’d better say at once—that these are
quite
the Chambers for a Russian. Have you tried one of the more
un-noticeable
professions? Perhaps the Civil Service?’

Veneering said that he was a lawyer.

‘Well exactly.
Exactly
. But we are exclusively Libel Chambers here. We are, I’ll admit, on the verge of being fashionable—even Royalty hovers—but all is very slow and fragile. So
very
few decadent duchesses.
Huge
sums to be made of course eventually, but, dear boy, not yet. Tell me, why did you become a lawyer?’

‘Someone said I’d make a good one. He left me all his money. He wasn’t born rich. He qualified down here in London living on ten shillings a week. He set up offices in various parts of the country for worthy chaps like me. He was a sort of saint.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid he would never have been in the swim.’

‘No, he wasn’t. As a matter of fact I’m living on about ten shillings a week myself.’

‘He was a member of the
Bar
, this benefactor?’

‘No. Just a solicitor. In the north-east. He was killed in an air-raid. His name was Parable . . . ’

‘I can’t believe it! It is
pure
John Bunyan! He can’t, if you don’t mind my saying so, have left you very much money if you have to live on ten shillings a week?’

‘It turns out that my inheritance has gone missing. His house and office both took direct hits in the north in 1941. I only received twenty-five pounds in notes which had been in a friend’s keeping and a letter saying all his other assets were to be mine when I’d taken Bar Finals. I have my Royal Navy pension of two hundred a year.’

‘Oh, my dear chap—yes, thank you Hamish, just up to the top—and, he impressed you?’

‘Of course. He made sure I left home and didn’t get killed myself in the same air-raid. I was en route to Canada as an evacuee . . . ’

‘Oh, my God! What dramatic lives we have all led. Thank your stars you weren’t torpedoed aboard
The City of Somewhere
. All the little babies floating upside down in the water like dead fish. Depth-charged. Wonderful accounts of the few survivors plucked from the debris. Upturned boats, basket chairs—even a rocking-horse!
Not
very sporting. Now—just a minute, Toby,’—and the red-lipped man walked Terry out of the room, a manicured hand around his shoulder. ‘Dear boy, I would
dearly
like to have you. Have you tried other Chambers? You have? Ah well, you know, the chance will come. Give it time. There’s no work anywhere at present. Nobody sane is going to Law. The price of victory is lethargy and poverty. We must bide our time and use our private money. I’m sure you’ll find Mr. Parable’s treasure somewhere. But as you can see . . . As you can hear . . . ’

The noise and the odours of bibulous men, the cigarette smoke, the good white burgundy followed Veneering out and back in to the stately planting of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

‘I have simply no room for another pupil,’ said the Head of Chambers, shaking hands. ‘Dear Fellow, how I’ve packed them in already! I’ve got them swinging from the Chandeliers!’

* * *

‘So!’ said Veneering. ‘Ha!’ and he walked across the grass and up to the stagnant static-water tanks set in place years ago to deal with the coming fire-bombs on the Inn. ‘It has come to this. A decadent country, threadbare, idle, frivolous, cynical, hidden money.’

He longed all at once for Herringfleet. For his shadowy brave father, for Peter Parable. High-mindedness. The coal-cart. He kicked his feet in the tired grass.

‘So much for the Law. The Law is still a ass, as the great man had said over a hundred years ago. Dickens. Lived near here. Must have had a splendid view of the Law in action when you think about it. Five or ten minutes’ walk from his house in Doughty Street. I’ll go and see it. I’ll go now. I’ll pay homage. I’ll prostrate myself on his study floor and I’ll say, “Dickens, you did what you could (And why didn’t you get a knighthood? Queen Victoria liked you. Was it the infidelity?) and you did a lot. And you changed it all without a Law degree. You did it on your own with a pen and a bottle of ink.”

‘I am not going near the Law now. I’m going to be a journalist. A left-wing journalist.
The New Statesman
offices are up at the end here, up the alley. I’ll walk in now. I’ll demand a job.

‘And I’ll be given one. I feel it in the wind.’

* * *

Back in the Libel Chambers the clerk, Augustus, was pushing his way through the throng of the party. Finding his Head of Chambers he said, ‘Sir? Where is he?’

‘
Who
? Augustus, have a drink.’

‘Him. The foreign fellow. Looking for pupillage?’

‘Oh,
him
. Goldilocks. No good, Augustus. Useless. Too odd. Too foreign.’

‘You never sent ’im away, Sir?’

‘Oh, he wasn’t desperate.’

‘But
we
are desperate, you fool, Sir. That one’s a winner.’

‘Now then, Gussee, how d’you know?’

‘I’m a Clerk. I know what I can sell. He’s young and fit and he misses nothing. Brilliant. Better qualified than anyone in this room. You’ve lost us all a fortune you bloody fool, Sir.’

‘Oh, don’t say that! Get him back then, Gus. We’ll take him on. I’ll write to his tutor.’

‘He won’t come back. Not that one. It’s love me or leave me with that one. You’ll hear of him again all-right, but he’ll always be on the other side. That one’s a life-time type. Not that he’ll want much truck with libel and slander now. It’ll be the Commercial Bar for him, he’s poor. You’ve lost him his beliefs, about helpless widows and orphans. That one’s for Lord Chancellor. He’ll be on the Woolsack if he wants to be. I feel like going with him. You dolt, Sir.’

‘Oh dear! Augustus—Augustus, have a pint with me later in the Wig and Pen Club.’

* * *

Veneering walked away from the static-water tanks on Lincoln’s Inn Fields and towards the offices of
The New Statesman and Nation
where he would, of course, be taken on immediately. Then a short walk to Dickens’ house in Doughty Street, a hand-shake with his ghost, then cadge a lift somehow back to Oxford to recover his books, lecture-notes and dissertation, then burn the lot.

After which . . . ! Back East, and into the iron grip of Elsie’s family business.

Oh!

Towards the north end of Lincoln’s Inn the crowds, en route to their buses and trains home to north London, were tramping beside and behind him. Crowds tramping south towards the river and Waterloo Bridge and station were advancing towards him in similar numbers. Nobody spoke or smiled or paused.

But Terry Veneering stopped dead.

He stopped dead.

The crowds washed round him, one or two people looking up at his pale face and glaring eyes and platinum hair. (About to faint? Hungry? Gormless? Mad?) Some grumbled, ‘What the hell’ and stumbled and some said, ‘Bloody hell! You had me nearly over.’

Terry turned round and began to walk slowly back with the south-bound throng, retracing the last twenty or so yards. Then, he stopped again, turned again and looked, fearfully, at the building to his right. There was a little patch of old garden, its railings taken away years before to make Spitfires, a scuffed stone archway with a scuffed stone staircase twisting upwards. Up the first two steps of the staircase, on the wall of the old building was a faded wooden panel with its traditional list of the Lawyers’ names who worked within. The list was far from new, but painted in immemorial legal copperplate. He read the words ‘Parable, Apse & Apse, Solicitors.’

* * *

The door was not locked. He walked straight in expecting a derelict abandoned store-room, fire-buckets, stirrup pumps, tin hats abandoned since the Blitz. Just inside he saw instead a row of iron coat-hooks where someone had hung a bowler hat and folded a pair of clean kid gloves on top of it.

Terry opened an inner door without knocking and facing him sat a young man at a desk, a sandwich suspended in time en route to his mouth. Beside him on a smaller and more splintery desk stood a gigantic Remington type-writer on which was arranged a pocket mirror, a paper napkin, paper plate and similar sandwich. A middle-aged woman wearing a seal-skin coat sat behind it.

Four jaws ceased to move. Four eyes stared. Terry said, ‘I believe that you are a firm of solicitors?’

‘Ah,’ said the young man, putting the sandwich down on a clean handkerchief on his desk. ‘Not exactly! Not for a few years. We are in a state of flux. But may we help you?’

‘You must know—have known Mr. Parable? Mr. Parable-Apse?’

‘No, sir. I’m afraid all the old partners in the firm are dead. We keep the names on the door in the old tradition. It is rather like the memorial friezes on the walls of the tombs of the Pharaohs. I am a very,
very
distant Apse. Thomas.’

‘And so this is—a set of Chambers?’

‘Well no. For years it seems to have been a solicitor’s office. One of a string of almost charitable centres for the poor—an early Legal Aid—set up by the founding Apse, a northerner. A lonely philanthropist who made a considerable amount of money.’

‘And he . . . ?’

‘Was killed in the war. We are in the process of being dispossessed by the Inn. Desperate for space. Work here is rather slow and no-one is really in charge. All the first Mr. Apse’s fortune was left to someone quite outside the family with a strange name, and he is dead.’