"Mortimer, John - Rumpole and the Younger Generation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mortimer John)

'He might like to compare it with the date so conveniently set out in the indictment.' When the subsequent formalities were over, I went down to the cells. This was not a visit of commiseration, no time for a 'sorry old sweetheart, but ...' and a deep consciousness of having asked one too many questions. All the same, I was in no gentle mood, in fact, it would be fair to say that I was bloody angry with Jimbo.

'You had an alibi! You had a proper, reasonable, truthful alibi, and, joy of joys, it came from the prosecution! Why the hell didn't you tell me?' Jim, who seemed to have little notion of the peril he had passed, answered me quite calmly, 'Dad wouldn't've liked it.' 'Dad! What's Dad got to do with it?' I was astonished.

'He wouldn't've liked it, Mr Rumpole. Not me going out with Peanuts.' ' So you were quite ready to be found guilty, to be convicted of robbery, just because your Dad wouldn't like you going out with Peanuts Molloy?' 'Dad got the family to alibi me.' Jim clearly felt that the Timsons had done their best for him.

'Keep it in the family!' Though it was heavily kid on, the irony was lost on Jim. He smiled politely and stood up, eager to join the clan upstairs.

' Well, anyway. Thanks a lot, Mr Rumpole. Dad said I could rely on you. To win the day, like. I'd better collect me things.' If Jim thought I was going to let him get away as easily as that, he was mistaken. Rumpole rose in his crumpled gown, doing his best to represent the majesty of the law. 'No! Wait a minute. I didn't win the day. It was luck. The purest fluke. It won't happen again!' 'You're joking, Mr Rumpole.' Jim thought I was being modest. 'Dad told me about you ... He says you never let the Timsons down.' I had a sudden vision of my role in life, from young Jim's point of view and I gave him the voice of outrage which I use frequently in Court. I had a message of importance for Jim Timson.

'Do you think that's what I'm here for? To help you along in a career like your Dad's?' Jim was still smiling, maddeningly. 'My God! I shouldn't have asked those questions! I shouldn't have found out the date of the concert! Then you'd really be happy, wouldn't you? You could follow in Dad's footsteps all your life! Sharp spell of Borstal training to teach you the mysteries of housebreaking, and then a steady life in the Nick. You might really do well! You might end up in Parkhurst, Maximum Security Wing, doing a glamorous twenty years and a hero to the screws'.

At which the door opened and a happy screw entered, for the purpose of springing young Jim, until the inevitable next time.

'We've got his things at the gate, Mr Rumpole. Come on Jim. You can't stay here all night.' 'I've got to go," Jim agreed. 'I don't know how to face Dad, really. Me being so friendly with Peanuts.' ' Jim,' I tried a last appeal.' If you're at all grateful for what I did...' 'Oh I am, Mr Rumpole, I'm quite satisfied.' Generous of him.

' Then you can perhaps repay me.' 'Why, aren't you on Legal Aid?' 'It's not that! Leave him! Leave your Dad.' Jim frowned, for a moment he seemed to think it over. Then he said,' I don't know as how I can.' 'You don't know?' 'Mum depends on me, you see. Like when Dad goes away. She depends on me then, as head of the family.' So he left me, and went up to temporary freedom and his new responsibilities.

My mouth was dry and I felt about 90 years old, so I took the lift up to that luxurious eatery, the Old Bailey canteen, for a cup of tea and a Penguin biscuit. And, pushing his tray along past the urns, I met a philosophic Chief Inspector' Persil' White. He noticed my somewhat lugubrious expression and tried a cheering 'Don't look so miserable, Mr Rumpole. You won didn't you?"

'Nobody won, the truth emerges sometimes, Inspector, even down the Old Bailey.' I must have sounded less than gracious. The wiley old copper smiled tolerantly.

' He's a Timson. It runs in the family. We'll get him sooner or later!' 'Yes. Yes. I suppose you will.' At a table in a corner, I found certain members of my Chambers, George Frobisher, Percy Hoskins, and young Tony MacLay, now resting from their labours, their wigs lying among cups of Old Bailey tea, buns and choccy bics. I joined them. Wordsworth entered my head, and I gave him an airing ... ' Trailing clouds of glory do we come.' 'Marvellous win, that. I was telling them.' Young MacLay thought I was announcing my triumph.

'Yes, Rumpole. I hear you've had a splendid win.' Old George, ever generous, smiled, genuinely pleased.

' It'll be years before you get the cheque,' Hoskins grumbled.

' Not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home ..." I was thinking of Jim, trying to sort out his situation with the help of Wordsworth.

'You don't get paid for years at the Old Bailey. I try to tell my grocer that. If you had to wait as long to be paid for a pound of sugar, I tell him, as we do for an armed robbery..." Hoskins was warming to a well-loved theme, but George, dear old George was smiling at me.

'Albert tells me he's had a letter from Wystan. I just wanted to say, I'm sure we'd all like to say, you'll make a splendid Head of Chambers, Rumpole.' 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy, Shades of the prison house begin to close Upon the growing boy ... But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy.' I gave them another brief glimpse of immortality. George looked quite proud of me and told MacLay, 'Rumpole quotes poetry. He does it quite often.' 'But does the growing boy behold the light?' I wondered. 'Or was the old sheep of the Lake District being unduly optimistic?' 'It'll be refreshing for us all, to have a Head of Chambers who quotes poetry,' George went on, at which point Percy Hoskins produced a newspaper which turned out to contain an item of news for us all.

'Have you seen The Times, Rumpole?' 'No, I haven't had time for the crossword.' 'Guthrie Featherstone. He's taken silk.' It was the apotheosis, the great day for the Labour-Conservative Member for wherever it was, one time unsuccessful prosecutor of Jim Timson and now one of Her Majesty's counsel, called within the Bar, and he went down to the House of Lords tailored out in his new silk gown, a lace jabot, knee breeches with diamante buckles, patent shoes, black silk stockings, lace cuffs and a full-bottomed wig that made him look like a pedigree, but not over-bright, spaniel. However, Guthrie Featherstone was a tall man, with a good calf in a silk stocking, and he took with him Marigold, his lady wife, who was young enough, and I suppose pretty enough, for Henry our junior clerk to eye wistfully, although she had the sort of voice that puts me instantly in mind of headscarves and gymkhanas, that high pitched nasal whining which a girl learns from too much contact with the saddle when young, and too little with the Timsons of this world in later life. The couple were escorted by Albert, who'd raided Moss Bros for a top hat and morning coat for the occasion and when the Lord Chancellor had welcomed Guthrie to that special club of Queen's Counsel (on whose advice the Queen, luckily for her, never has to rely for a moment) they came back to Chambers where champagne (the N.V. cooking variety, bulk bought from Pommeroy's Wine Bar) was served by Henry and old Miss Patterson our typist, in Wystan's big room looking out over Temple Gardens. C.H. Wystan, our retiring Head, was not among those present as the party began, and I took an early opportunity to get stuck into the beaded bubbles.

After the fourth glass I felt able to relax a bit and wandered to where Featherstone, in all his finery, was holding forth to Erskine-Brown about the problems of appearing en travestie. I arrived just as he was saying, 'It's the stockings that're the problem'.

' Oh yes. They would be.' I did my best to sound interested.

'Keeping them up.' ' I do understand.' 'Well, Marigold. My wife Marigold ..." I looked across to where Mrs Q.C. was tinkling with laughter at some old legal anecdote of Uncle Tom's. It was a laugh that seemed in some slight danger of breaking the wine glasses.

'That Marigold?' 'Her sister's a nurse, you know ... and she put me in touch with this shop which supplies suspender belts to nurses... among other things.' 'Really?' This conversation seemed to arouse some dormant sexual interest in Erskine-Brown.

'Yards of elastic, for the larger ward sister. But it works miraculously.' 'You're wearing a suspender belt?' Erskine-Brown was frankly fascinated. 'You sexy devil!' 'I hadn't realized the full implications,' I told the Q.C., 'of rising to the heights of the legal profession.' I wandered off to where Uncle Tom was giving Marigold a brief history of life in our Chambers over the last half-century. Percy Hoskins was in attendance, and George.

' It's sometime since we had champagne in Chambers.' Uncle Tom accepted a refill from Albert.

'It's sometime since we had a silk in Chambers,' Hoskins smiled at Marigold who flashed a row of well-groomed teeth back at him.