The Paying Guests (60 page)

Here, for the first time, Mr Tresillian rose to ask questions for the defence. He wanted to know more about the bleeding. Wasn’t it likely that, with such an injury, splashes of blood would have found their way on to the clothing of Mr Barber’s attacker?

Mr Palmer nodded, in a generous way. ‘Yes, there might very well have been splashes.’

‘Then what do you have to say about the fact that no such splashes were ever discovered on the clothes of the accused?’

‘I have nothing to say – except, of course, that clothes are easily washed or discarded. Blood was certainly discovered on the cosh.’

‘Blood that has not been proved to be human?’

‘Blood that is almost sure to be human.’

‘Blood, however, that cannot be proved to have belonged to the human named Leonard Barber, any more than the hairs that were taken from Mr Barber’s overcoat can be matched, to your own satisfaction, with the hair of the accused?’

The surgeon inclined his head, less generously than before. ‘No.’

With that, Mr Tresillian returned to his place at the counsels’ bench. Frances watched him sit, thinking, What are you doing? Don’t leave it there! Keep going! But he was adding notes to a piece of paper now, in the most leisurely way imaginable: a plain young man in horn-rimmed spectacles, only a year or two older than herself, with a lean face and long, pale hands that brought to mind those of John Arthur. He might have a sister like her, a mother like hers at home. He had risen this morning from an ordinary bed, and eaten a breakfast just as she had, perhaps with a flutter in the pit of his stomach… Her heart shrivelled at the uselessness of it all. He’d never manage it. He was too young. She wanted the other man, Mr Ives. He was like a barrister in a book, like a barrister in a film – just now, for example, he was discussing some detail with the judge, and that was what she wanted, someone who would debate a point of law like that, with one hand nonchalantly clasping the lapel of his gown. She and Lilian would never be saved by a man who might as well be her own brother, who went about the house in his socks, who lay on the sofa with his long legs raised and crossed at the bony ankle.

She listened tensely again to the two or three witnesses who came next. One of them was Inspector Kemp, looking pink and pleased with himself, describing the stages of the inquiry, making it sound like a game of hopscotch, one square leading neatly to another with only a few small sideways jumps. She became aware that her head was aching. The court had a white glazed ceiling; the clear, cold light was hard on the eyes. And then, sounds were travelling oddly. There were regular scrapings of chairs, and coughs and rustles up in the gallery; clerks and policemen came and went, in creaking shoes, with slips of paper. What must the boy be making of it all? He had seemed to listen keenly at the start, but his expression had grown blanker as the witnesses had come and gone, and now he was leaning forward with his elbows on the high ledge in front of him, his chin in his hand. She remembered his chewing-gum, his sniggers. His suit today was the same cheap blue one that he had worn at the police court, but someone had found him a soberer neck-tie, and his hair was improbably neat. His face was pale but slightly fuller, less ratty, than she recalled. He must have been eating better in prison, she thought, than in his own home.

As she watched him, he changed his pose, turned his head, and caught her eye. The blush rose in her like sickness, sour and unstoppable.

And then suddenly the inspector had stepped down from the stand; she was amazed to discover that half a day had passed, and the trial was adjourned for lunch. Lunch! It seemed too commonplace and casual a thing to think about, but once the jury had filed away and the robed men had left the dais, and Spencer had disappeared back down through the floor of the dock, the room became loose and unfocused again. Uncertain of what else to do, she followed the Barber men out to the marble hall, to a waiting-area with padded benches; Uncle Ted opened a briefcase, produced a wax-paper parcel and a thermos flask, and there appeared before her an unlikely spread of fish-paste sandwiches and tea. She had no appetite whatsoever, and it was surely the worst possible insult to them to take their food, but she accepted a sandwich at last, since they pressed her to. They discussed the progress of the trial, in grim, subdued voices. Douglas, fuming as usual, wanted to know what that fairy Tresillian thought he was playing at. He supposed there were men who’d defend anyone if there was a fee in it for them…

Frances’s headache had expanded into a settled dull throb. The dry little triangle of bread and paste stuck to the roof of her mouth. She wondered what the boy was being given for lunch, and whether he had any more heart for it than she had. She wished she knew where Lilian was; she thought of going in search of her. But what would she say to her if she found her? Half a day gone already; all this grandeur, all these clever men; and it was all as hopeless as ever. After a while she made an excuse, and rose, and wandered down the overdecorated hall. But the walk took her to another set of padded benches, with a lot of unhappy-looking people on them, also nibbling at sandwiches. She realised that the people had come from another court, with another trial going on in it, with its own judge, its own jury, its own clerks and barristers; and that there was another court beyond that. And she had a vision of the building with its veined marble walls as a sort of stone monster into which crimes, guilts, griefs were continually being fed, in which they were even now being digested, and from which all too soon they would be revoltingly expelled.

She looked back to see Leonard’s father signalling to her. It was time to return to the courtroom for the afternoon session. She followed him in; they settled themselves, and the remorseless digestion continued. Again, for a while, the witnesses were ones that she had seen before: the boys who’d heard Spencer making threats against Leonard, the couple from the lane. Then Charlie Wismuth’s name was called, and to her bewilderment he came in limping, with his arm in a sling and bruises on his face. Douglas saw her staring, and leaned to whisper to her, his lip curled in a horrible mixture of disgust and relish. Hadn’t she heard? Charlie’d got a pasting from the husband of that woman he’d been carrying on with! The man was heading for prison himself; he’d been up before the magistrate the week before… The thought of that, and the sight of the injuries, made Frances’s spirits droop further. And, of course, the details that came now were all the miserable ones about Leonard’s affair, the walks with the girls in the Green Park, the gifts, the spat at the Honey Bee night-club, the Tulse Hill meetings, the ‘particular traces’ —

‘We need not go further than that, I think,’ interrupted the judge, ‘since there are women present.’

And the next name called was Lilian’s. There had been whispers up in the gallery as Charlie had given his evidence, but the room fell silent for her: she was one of the star turns, after all. Frances grew nervous as soon as she saw her, recalling the trembling figure she had cut at the inquest. But she climbed calmly into the witness-box, and stood with her veiled head high, and took her oath, and answered the counsels’ questions, in a voice that was low but quite steady… And that was worse than anything. It made Frances hardly able to look at her. For she knew that her calm came partly from courage, but more from a devastating indifference to what might happen to her now; that she had withstood so many horrors since the night of Leonard’s death that she had become stripped and smooth and colourless, like a tree in a hurricane, like a stone in a pounding sea.

She was asked about her husband’s final day. No, he had not seemed nervous when he had left for work that morning. No, he had never done or said anything to make her think he feared for his safety. She had known nothing of his friendship with Miss Grey. She had known nothing of Spencer Ward. Yes, she remembered the evening of the first of July, when her husband had been assaulted.

Would she mind just describing that first injury?

He had been hit in the face, and his nose had bled.

It had bled badly?

Yes, she supposed so.

Had they discussed sending for a doctor?

That was the only time she hesitated and let her gaze fall. Yes, they had discussed sending for a doctor, she said, but had decided against it.

She didn’t once look in Frances’s direction as she spoke. But when she stepped down from the stand she murmured for a moment with the usher, and instead of leaving the courtroom as most of the other witnesses had done she came across it, to join the Barber men and Frances on their bench. She had to pass in front of the dock to do it, and Spencer stared dully at her as she went by, but there was an almost audible stretching of necks in the gallery as the spectators up there tried to follow her with their gazes; even the stolid court officials, the clerks and policemen, watched her go. She seated herself beside Leonard’s father, who put up a hand to pat her shoulder. Frances saw a small shudder pass through her at his touch.

And already something else had grabbed the attention of the room. A name had been called, and Frances had missed it. She heard the door to the court creak open, and then a slim female figure appeared. Only when the figure had entered the box, and she saw a curl of bottle-blonded hair, a pair of thinned eyebrows, did she recognise Billie Grey.

Because she had come so soon after Lilian, all that was apparent for the first few minutes was what a contrast the two of them made. She had dressed, it seemed, with no thought for the solemnity of the occasion, but might have been on her way to a tea-dance, in a coat of powder blue, and a close-fitting hat of pink velvet with an ostrich feather curling at the side; her cream suede gloves had scarlet beads on them that rivalled the robes of the judge. She blinked up at the gallery, and all around the court, with what Frances guessed to be a touch of short-sightedness. She didn’t seem to notice Lilian – but she saw Spencer all right; she drew her gaze back from his as if frightened. She stumbled slightly over the oath, then tittered at herself. She continued to titter as she gave her evidence, though Mr Ives guided her as patiently as he might have done a child: ‘Now, is that
quite
your recollection?’ ‘Just think about that remark for me, would you?’ But all he wanted was for her to confirm the statements she had made to the police regarding her relationship with Leonard, and the incident at the night-club, and Spencer’s rages and threats. Yes, she recalled very clearly that remark he had made about Mr Barber having been ‘owed a wallop’.

And what about that ‘falling out’ she’d had with him earlier in the summer. Could she remind the jury how that altercation had ended?

With another apprehensive glance at the dock, she said it had ended with Spencer striking her face and knocking out one of her back teeth. And when the boy huffed or muttered at the comment she spoke across the court to him directly – and Frances was startled to find that her tone was not fearful after all, but was chiding and faintly exasperated. ‘Well, you did do it, Spence.’

At once, she was rebuked by the judge. ‘You must not engage in conversation with the prisoner.’

‘Well, he did do it,’ she said again – with stubbornness, this time.

And whether the stubbornness was responsible, or – Frances wasn’t sure what it was. But for all that the girl, at first, had appeared so bewilderingly different from Lilian, the longer she stood there, gaining in confidence, the less unlike her she seemed to grow. She had the same wide, guileless face. Her eyes were dark and alive. Her mouth was full, though she had tried to make it fashionably smaller. Even the beads on her gloves and the feather on her hat recalled Lilian. She might just, Frances thought, have been Lilian at eighteen, Lilian unmarked by the hurried marriage, the still-born baby, the disappointments; Lilian, perhaps, as Leonard had first glimpsed her through the Walworth Road window.

Could Lilian herself see it? It was impossible to say. She was watching the girl in the level, lifeless way in which she did everything now. It was Billie who was growing flustered – for Mr Ives had finished with her and Mr Tresillian had begun his cross-examination, and he was not kind and patient, as the other man had been; he was not like John Arthur; he was sarcastic and rather savage. He had every respect, he said, for Miss Grey’s lost tooth, and a gentleman could never be forgiven for lifting his hand against a lady. But there were surely people present who could sympathise with the dismay a young man might feel on discovering that his fiancée had been going about on intimate terms with another woman’s husband. Wasn’t it true that Miss Grey and Mr Ward had been engaged to be married?

Billie widened her guileless eyes. Oh, no. That was just an idea that Spencer had got into his head.

Wasn’t it true that she had accepted a ring from him?

But he was always giving her presents; she couldn’t keep count of them. She wished he wouldn’t waste his money on her. They had been boy-and-girl friends, and she liked him well enough, but not in the way she’d liked Lenny – She blushed. ‘Mr Barber, I mean.’

Mr Barber had made her presents, too, had he not?

Well, he’d given her a few little things, ‘just to show his love by’.

And she had known that Mr Barber was married, when she had accepted those ‘little things’?

Yes, she’d known he was married. He had never been anything but straight with her about it. But his marriage wasn’t a proper one. There was no heart in it. It was all kept up for the look of the thing. – Lilian’s expression remained level at that, though once again people right across the court craned for a glimpse of her. No, Billie had never felt ashamed of herself. Lenny – Mr Barber – had said that life was too short for shame.

Too short for shame, echoed Mr Tresillian, heavily. Well, Mr Barber’s life had certainly proved to be a short one. As for shame – it was up to the jury to decide where precisely the shame lay, in this case. He wanted to remind them, however, that they were in a court of law; they might just, in the past few minutes, have been forgiven for supposing that they had strayed into a picture-theatre and had been watching the antics of characters in a so-called
ro
mance. Miss Grey had spoken of love, but wasn’t it true that her friendship with Mr Barber had in fact been of the most squalid kind imaginable? A thing of furtive meetings in parks and rented rooms?