Rumpole and the Primrose Path (27 page)

‘Like what, exactly?’

‘Well, telling your wife I hadn’t noticed you on the exercise bike when I signed you in. I’m afraid I got you into trouble.’

‘Trouble? Oh, hardly at all,’ I assured her. ‘I’ve been about as welcome in Froxbury Mansions as mice in the larder or a nasty patch of rising damp on the bedroom walls since you grassed about the Lysander Club. That’s all. I’ve had to learn to live with it.’

‘I said I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right. You told the truth. Some people find doing that an irresistible temptation.’

‘But don’t worry. I know exactly how you can make up for your shameful neglect of bicycling duty.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ I was, I have to confess, wary of the Director of Marketing’s plans for my future. When it comes to dealing with marriage, the cure is often worse than the disease.

‘All you have to do is to remember the date next Thursday.’

‘Why?’ I was mystified. ‘What
is
the date next Thursday?’

‘Just look it up and remember it. That’s all. By the way, I’ve booked a table for the two of you at the Myrtle restaurant.’

‘You mean ...’ Some distant memory began to trouble my mind.

‘Yes. I do mean. It’s your wedding anniversary and you’re going to take She Who Must Be Obeyed out to dinner.’

 

‘People all talked about Chirpy Molloy leaving his signature on the bathrooms of the houses he burgled. Well, if I know one thing about signatures, it is that they get forged. With all his contacts, the Blessed Saint Brian Skidmore knew all about the jewellery scattered around that house in the Sloane Square area. So he decided to do a job which seemed to have Chirpy’s signature written large upon it.’

‘Rumpole ...’

‘They were so sure it was Chirpy’s work that they didn’t bother to look for fingerprints. But when they started looking, they found Brian’s on a bottle of Machisimo. He wasn’t as careful as Chirpy, you see, and, of course, he never thought anyone would suspect the reformed con with a steady job in the Bunyan Society. He just didn’t take enough care.’

‘Rumpole, they’re taking such a long time with my steak.

Do you think they’re slaughtering the animal?’

‘It’s an odd thing about redemption. It seems to come to the most improbable people. Chirpy, it seems, really was redeemed. He’d got his new job and his new girlfriend, and I think he really means to give up invading other people’s bathrooms. But the Sainted Brian, exhibit A in the case for prison as a cure for crime, turns out not to have been redeemed at all. Not only did he want to get his fingers on Adele Alexander’s baubles, he tried to get a reformed con to do his bird for him.’

‘Rumpole, that asparagus wasn’t cooked properly. It was hard as nails and had flakes of cheese all over it. It wasn’t right, Rumpole. I should have complained at the time.’

‘It might have all worked if I hadn’t picked up the brief sent to Archie Prosser in a moment of treachery. Well, at least I could organize things so that Prosser could win the case. A somewhat rare event, as I understand it, in the life of our newest arrival in Chambers!’

‘Rumpole! Do we have to spend the evening discussing your cases?’

There was a distinct edge to Hilda’s voice as she said that. I decided to drop the subject of the forged burglaries.

‘No, of course we don’t. I mean, why should we discuss my cases? Quite certainly not! By the way, what would you like to discuss?’

‘What about - the reason we’re here. Dining out. Is that because you’re trying to redeem yourself, Rumpole?’

‘Yes.’ I had to tell her the truth. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do.’

The Myrtle was packed out as usual that evening; only the networking skills of Luci Gribble had won us a table. Against the dark wood of the walls, over the snowy white tablecloths, the faces, vaguely familiar from Hilda’s tabloid and the telly, recognized each other, gave faint little cries of greeting, and then turned their attention back to their plates. Waiters in long white aprons sniffed corks, removed dripping champagne bottles from their buckets or set out plates. It was all far removed from lunch at the Worsfield nick, where this story began. I poured the unaccustomed vintage claret into our glasses and raised mine.

‘Happy wedding anniversary.’ I touched her glass with mine and took a gulp.

‘You remembered?’ She Who Must looked as though she didn’t believe a word of it.

Again I decided to surprise her with the truth. ‘Well, I have to say no, I didn’t remember. At least not until Luci reminded me.’

‘I told her you never remember.’

‘Well, that may be true, as a general rule. But on this occasion Luci told me, and then I remembered it quite clearly.’

‘You’d make a hopeless witness, Rumpole.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘No one would believe your evidence for a moment.’

‘I’m not in the business of giving evidence,’ I told her. ‘I’m in the business of asking questions.’

‘Ask me then.’

‘Do I really have to go on bicycling nowhere?’

‘You’re not going to, are you, whatever I say?’

‘No.’

‘All right then. I just wanted to keep you going for a little while longer. I can’t think why it is, but I don’t want to lose you, Rumpole.’

This was so astonishing.that it sent me imagining a world without She Who Must Be Obeyed. What would it be like? I seemed to see a great emptiness. A world without difficult cases, as bland, perhaps, as a world without crime or the possibility of redemption. I was about to say something along these lines when the waiter arrived and slid her main course dexterously in front of Hilda. She switched her attention from me to the waiter.

‘I hope it’s as I like it,’ she said. ‘By the way, I think I should tell you, the asparagus was not right.’

‘Not right?’ The waiter was Australian and took Hilda’s complaint with a cheerful smile.

‘To begin with it was hard as nails. I almost broke my teeth on it.’

‘That’s right! Al dente.’

‘Well, we can do without the al dente, thank you. And someone had put bits of cheese on it.’

‘Parmesan.’

‘Exactly! So you admit it. You don’t put cheese on asparagus. It wasn’t right, you know. I’d like you to know that, because we’re quite likely to be back at the same time next year.’

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