“You shouldn’t have to witness a scene like that, Cyril,” she said, her face filled with concern. From beyond the door, I could hear the sound of chairs being knocked over and Maude asking everyone to be careful of an ornamental cigarette stand that had come all the way from St. Petersburg. “It’s disgraceful that grown men should carry on in that way in front of you.”
“Is Charles going to go to prison?” I asked, and she glanced toward the dining room to ensure that the fight was not about to spill out into the hallway.
“That’s not something that’s been decided yet,” she said, kneeling down before me and brushing the hair away from my forehead, the way adults often do with children. “There are twelve of us on the jury. We need to hear all the evidence before reaching a verdict. I have no idea why Mr. Woodbead invited us here tonight for this elaborate deception. It’s bad enough having to listen to those jackasses every day in the Four Courts without having to dine with them too. The truth is, I only came because he implied that…well, it doesn’t matter what he implied. I’m sure he won’t go through with his threat. I should have simply told him to go ahead and do his worst. Now go on up to bed, there’s a good boy.” She tilted her head a little to the side and smiled, her expression thoughtful now. “It’s the strangest thing,” she said. “You remind me of someone but I can’t think who.” She pondered for a few moments and shrugged. “No,” she said. “It’s gone. Anyway, I better be going. I have to be back in court by nine o’clock in the morning. Goodnight, Cyril.”
And with that she shook my hand, put a sixpence into my palm, and slipped out into the darkness of Dartmouth Square where, by a stroke of good luck, a taxi happened to be passing. It pulled up and she disappeared into the night while I stood on the doorstep, looked out toward the city and wondered whether anyone would even notice if I went missing.
The Man from the Revenue
The days that followed were a whirlwind of activity and perhaps there was an inevitability to how the case would be concluded. My adoptive father, with the optimism of an author working on the sixth volume of a series that no one seems to be reading, believed that his friendship with Max Woodbead would survive their little contretemps but he could scarcely have been more wrong, and when Max took his revenge some months later, it was swift and directly on target. In the meantime, however, he continued to act as Charles’s solicitor while making it clear that he would behave in a professional manner until the trial was over but after that their relationship would be terminated forever.
Maude and I traveled to the Four Courts together on the final day to hear the verdict and, as I had not been allowed to attend during the trial itself, I was fascinated and a little frightened by the majesty of the Round Hall, where the families of victims and criminals alike mixed in a curious mélange of quarry and miscreant while barristers marched to and fro in black gowns and white wigs, laden down with folders and trailed by anxious-looking juniors. My adoptive mother was seething with rage, for the case had received so much publicity over recent weeks that her latest novel, Amongst Angels, had found its way to the front table of the Hodges Figgis Bookshop on Dawson Street, a location that none of her previous work had ever come close to troubling in the past. Alerted to the fact that morning over breakfast by our housekeeper, Brenda, who had been shopping in town the afternoon before, she extinguished her cigarette in the center of an egg yolk and started to tremble in fury, her face pale with humiliation.
“The vulgarity of it all,” she said. “Popularity. Readers. I can’t bear it. I knew Charles would destroy my career in the end.”
Worse was to come, however, when, shortly after we sat down, a lady seated a few rows behind us approached with a copy of that same book and hovered beside our pew, smiling eagerly as she waited to be acknowledged.
“Can I help you?” asked Maude, turning to her with all the warmth of Lizzie Borden dropping in to say goodnight to her parents.
“You’re Maude Avery, aren’t you?” asked the woman, who was in her sixties and had a helmet of blue hair whose color was not one that could be found anywhere in nature. Had I been a little older I would have recognized her as one of those people who attended court on a regular basis, the building being warm and the entertainment free, and who knew the names of all the barristers, judges and ushers and probably had a better understanding of the law than most of them.
“I am,” said Maude.
“I hoped that you’d be here today,” said the woman with a broad and excited smile. “I’ve been watching out for you throughout the trial but you never appeared. I expect you’ve been writing. Where do you get your ideas from anyway? You’ve a great imagination altogether. And do you write by hand or on a typewriter? I have a story that would sell millions but I don’t have the talent to write it down. I should tell you it and then you could write it for me and we could share the money. It’s about the olden days, of course. People love stories about the olden days. And it has a dog in it. And doesn’t the poor dog only go and die?”
“Could you leave me alone, please?” asked Maude, trying hard to control her temper.
“Oh,” said the woman, her smile fading a little. “You’re all upset, I can see. You’re worried about your husband. I’ve been here every day and I can tell you that you’re right to be worried. He hasn’t a hope. He’s a very handsome man all the same, isn’t he? Well, if you could just sign this book for me I’ll leave you in peace. Here’s a pen. I want you to write For Mary-Ann, best of luck with the operation on your varicose veins, lots of love, and then your signature and the date.”
Maude stared at the book as if she had never seen such a repulsive object in her life and for a moment I thought she was going to take it from the woman and fling it across the courtroom, but before she could do so, the bailiff opened one of the side doors, the jury and the court officials entered and she waved the woman away, like a tourist scattering pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
I watched Charles as he took his place in the dock and for the first time I could see real anxiety in his face. I don’t think he had ever believed that things would get this far and yet there he was, his future about to be determined by twelve complete strangers, none of whom, as far as he was concerned, had any business judging him at all.