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Rumpole and the Married Lady.
by John Mortimer.

From "Rumpole of the Bailey".

Life at the Bar has its ups and downs, and there are times when there is an appalling decrease in crime, when all the decent villains seem to have gone on holiday to the Costa Brava, and lawfulness breaks out. At such times, Rumpole is unemployed, as I was one morning when I got up late and sat in the kitchen dawdling over breakfast in my dressing gown and slippers, much to the annoyance of She Who Must Be Obeyed who was getting the coffee cups shipshape so that they could be piped on board to do duty as teacups later in the day. I was winning my daily battle with the tormented mind who writes The Times crossword, when Hilda, not for the first time in our joint lives, compared me unfavourably with her late father.

'Daddy got to Chambers dead at nine every day of his life!' 'Your old dad, old C. H. Wystan, got to Chambers dead on nine and spent the morning on The Times crossword. I do it at home, that's the difference between us. You should be grateful.' ' Grateful?' Hilda frowned.

'For the companionship,' I suggested.

' I want you out of the house, Rumpole. Don't you understand that? So I can clear up the kitchen!' ' O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy and hard to please.' Hilda doesn't like poetry, I could tell by her heavy sigh.

'Just a little peace. So I can be alone. To get on with things.' 'And when I come home a little late in the evenings. When I stop for a moment in Pommeroy's Wine Bar, to give myself strength to face the Inner Circle. You never seem particularly grateful to have been left alone in the house. To get on with things!' 'You've been wasting time. That's what I resent.' 'wasted Time, and now doth Time waste me.' I switched from Scott to Shakespeare. The reaction of my life-mate was no better.

'Chattering to that idiot George Frobisher! I really don't know why you bother to come home at all. Now Nick's gone it seems quite unnecessary.' 'Nick?' It was a year since Nick had gone to America and we hadn't had a letter since Christmas.

'You know what I mean! We used to be a family. We had to try at least, for Nick's sake. Oh, why don't you go to work?' 'Nick'll be back.' I moved from the table and put an arm on her shoulder. She shook it off.

'Do you believe that? When he's got married? When he's got his job at the University of Baltimore? Why on earth should he want to come back to Gloucester Road?' 'He'll want to come back sometime. To see us. He'll want to hear all our news. What I've been doing in Court,' I said, giving Hilda her opening.

'What you've been doing in Court? You haven't been doing anything in Court apparently!' At which moment the phone rang in our living-room and Hilda, who loves activity, dashed to answer it. I heard her telling the most appalling lies through the open door.

'No, it's Mrs Rumpole. I'll see if I can catch him. He's just rushing out of the door on his way to work.' I joined her in my dressing gown; it was my new clerk, the energetic Henry. He wanted me to come into Chambers for a conference, and I asked him if the world had come to its senses and crime was back in its proper place in society. No, he told me, as a matter of fact it wasn't crime at all.

'You haven't even shaved!' Hilda rebuked me. 'Daddy'd never have spoken to his clerk on the telephone before he'd had a shave!' I put down the telephone and gave Mrs Rumpole a look which I hoped was enigmatic.' It's a divorce,' I told her.

As I walked through the Temple, puffing a small cigar on the way to the factory, I considered the question of divorce. Well, you've got to take what you can nowadays, and I suppose divorce is in a fairly healthy state. Divorce figures are rising. What's harder to understand is the enormous popularity of marriage! I remembered the scene at breakfast that morning, and I really began to wonder how marriage ever became so popular. I mean, was it 'Home Life' with She Who Must Be Obeyed? Gloucester Road seemed to be my place of work, of hard, back-breaking toil. It was a relief to get down to the Temple, for relaxation. By that time I had reached my Chambers, No. i Equity Court, a place of peace and quiet. It felt like home.

When I got into the hallway I opened the door of the clerk's room, and was greeted by an extraordinary sight. A small boy, I judged him to be about ten years old, was seated on a chair beside Dianne our typist. He was holding a large, lit-up model of a jet aeroplane and zooming it through the air at a noise level which would have been quite unacceptable to the New York Port authority.

I shut the door and beat a hasty retreat to the privacy of my sanctum. But when I opened my own door I was astounded to see a youngish female seated in my chair, wearing horn-rimmed specs and apparently interviewing a respectable middle-aged lady and a man who gave every appearance of being an instructing solicitor. I shut that door also and turned to find the zealous Henry crossing the hall towards me, bearing the most welcome object in my small world, a brief.

' Henry,' I said in some panic.' There's a woman, seated in my chair!' 'Miss Phyllida Trant, sir. She's been with us for the last few months. Ex-pupil of Mr Erskine-Brown. You haven't met her?' I searched my memory. 'I've met the occasional whiff of French perfume on the stairs.' ' Miss Trant's anxious to widen her experience.' ' Hence the French perfume?' ' She wants to know if she could sit in on your divorce case.

I've got the brief here. "Thripp v. Thripp." You're the wife, Mr Rumpole.' 'Am I? Jolly good." I took the brief and life improved considerably at the sight of the figure written on it. 'Marked a hundred and fifty guineas! These Thripps are the sort to breed from! Oh, and I don't know if you're aware of this, Henry. There seems to be a child in the clerk's room, with an aeroplane !' ' He's here for the conference.' I didn't follow his drift. 'What's the child done? It doesn't want a divorce too ?' 'It's the child of the family in "Thripp v. Thripp", Henry explained patiently, 'and I rather gather the chief bone of contention. So long now, Mr Rumpole.' He moved away towards the clerk's room.' Sorry to have interrupted your day at home.' 'You can interrupt my day at home any time you like, for a brief marked a hundred and fifty guineas! Miss Phyllida Trant, did you say?' ' Yes sir. You don't mind her sitting in, do you ?' 'Couldn't you put her off, Henry? Tell her a divorce case is sacrosanct. It'd be like a priest inviting a few lady friends to join in the confessional.' ' I told her you'd have no objection. Miss Trant's very keen to practise.' 'Then couldn't she practise at home?' 'We're about the only Chambers without a woman, Mr Rum-pole. It's not good for our image.' He seemed determined, so I gave him a final thought on my way into the conference. 'Our old clerk Albert never wanted a woman in Chambers. He said there wasn't the lavatory accommodation.' So there I was at the desk having a conference in a divorce case with Miss Phyllida Trant 'sitting in', Mr Perfect the solicitor looking grave, and the client, Mrs Thripp, leaning forward and regarding me with gentle trusting eyes. As I say, she seemed an extremely nice and respectable woman, and I wasn't to know that she was to cause me more trouble than all the murderers I have ever defended.

'As soon as you came into the room I felt safe somehow, Mr Rumpole. I knew Norman and I would be safe with you.' 'Norman?' ' The child of the family.' Miss Trant supplied the information.

'Thank you. Miss Trant. The little aviator in the clerk's room. Quite. But if I'm to help you, you'll have to do your best to help me too.' 'Anything! What is it you want exactly?' Mrs Thripp seemed entirely co-operative.

'Well, dear lady, a couple of black eyes would come in extremely handy,' I said hopefully. Mrs Thripp looked at Miss Trant, puzzled.

'Mr Rumpole means, has your husband ever used physical violence?' Miss Trant explained.

'Well, no... Not actual violence.' 'Pity.' I commiserated with her. 'Mr Thripp doesn't show a very helpful attitude. You see, if we're going to prove "cruelty"...' ' We don't have to, do we?' I noticed then that Miss Trant was sitting in front of a pile of legal text books. 'Intolerable conduct. Since the Divorce Law Reform Act 1969.' I thought then that it's not the frivolity that makes women intolerable, it's the ghastly enthusiasm, the mustard keeness to get into the lacrosse team, the relentless drive to learn the Divorce Law Reform Act by heart: that and the French perfume. I could have managed that conference quite nicely without Miss Trant. I said to her, however, as politely as possible, 'The Divorce Law Reform Act, which year did you say ?' '1969-' ' Yes,' I smiled at Mrs Thripp.' Well, you know how it is. Go down the Old Bailey five minutes and you've found they've passed another Divorce Reform Act. Thank you, Miss Trant, for reminding me. Now then what's this intolerable conduct, exactly?' 'He doesn't speak,' Mrs Thripp told me.

'Well, a little silence can come as something of a relief. In the wear and tear of married life.' ' I don't think you understand,' Mrs Thripp smiled patiently. 'He hasn't spoken a word to me for three years.' 'Three years? Good God! How does he communicate?' The instructing solicitor laid a number of little bits of paper on my desk.

' By means of notes.' I then discovered that the man Thripp, who I was not in the least surprised to learn was a chartered accountant, used his matrimonial home as a sort of Post Office. When he wished to communicate with his wife he typed out brusque and businesslike notes, documents which threw a blinding light, in my opinion, on the man's character.