‘You don’t know the exact month?’
‘The time tulips bloom,’ said Flo, with irritation. ‘Spring. Don’t you know the time tulips flower?’
‘And when you saw pepper on the tulips, what did you do?’
‘Well, dear. I went out to have a look at it.’
‘Mrs Bolt, will you kindly not refer to Counsel as dear, I’ve told you already.’
‘Ah, my lord, it slipped out, and I’m sorry, sir.’
‘How do you know it was pepper?’
‘How did I know? It was red, like pepper.’
‘Red?
‘Paprika,’ said Flo, patient but exasperated.
‘Oh!’ He consulted his notes, ‘I took you to mean white pepper.’
The Judge said: ‘I really do feel that the colour of the pepper was immaterial.’
‘My lord, is it likely that two old people on the old age pension should use red pepper. A rather exotic commodity, I should say.’
‘Y e e e e s,’ mumured the Judge.
‘Mrs Bolt, is it likely that your tenants should use expensive red pepper?’
‘Why not? The old witch crawled downstairs and stole it from me, you don’t catch her buying anything she can nip out of my cupboard if I forget to lock it.’
‘Mrs Bolt,’ said the Judge. ‘I see nothing about theft in your statement.’
‘Did I forget to put it in, dear? Well, it slipped my mind what with all the other things.’
‘Mrs Bolt, if you don’t show some respect for this Court, then I really am afraid I must fine you for Contempt.’
‘Contempt?’ cried Flo, on the verge of tears. ‘What’s that? But, sir, it gets me all flustered, with this talk about the price of this and the price of that.’
The Judge said to Counsel: ‘Do you intend to take this matter of theft up?’
Counsel gave a dubious look at the old lady, shook his head hurriedly, and went straight on at Flo: ‘How did you know it was pepper? It might have been dust.’
‘Know? I saw the old witch sprinkle it on.’
‘Mrs Bolt, you really must not use this language in Court.’
Flo burst into tears, saw Dan grinding his teeth at her, and dried her eyes, dolefully.
‘Did you smell the pepper to make sure?’ asked Counsel.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if you smell pepper you sneeze.’
‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ said the Judge. He looked at the clock and sighed.
Defence Counsel in order to gain time, asked: ‘Let me put it to you that you sprinkled the pepper on the tulips yourself.’
The Judge sighed again.
Flo shouted: ‘Now is it likely I’d put pepper on the tulips I’d planted and watered with my own hands?’
‘Don’t shout,’ said the Judge.
‘But he doesn’t believe me,’ said Flo, in genuine distress, pointing at the Counsel.
‘My good woman, it’s his job not to believe you.’
‘Well, it seems silly to me.’
‘It’s not for you to say what’s silly and what isn’t.’
‘Well, who’s paying for it? It’s cost us over a hundred pounds already, and more to come for today’s foolery,’ said Flo bitterly. ‘Why can’t we decide who we want to have in our own house, that we bought and paid for?’
‘Mrs Bolt, for the last time, will you restrain your language?’
Flo shrugged, as if to say: ‘Well, let’s have done with it, and I want my tea.’ It was clear she had lost all hope of gaining anything by the case. But she had worn out the Counsel, who dismissed her.
They now called Rose, who had been sitting next to me. I had felt her trembling at the idea of standing up, thus exposed in public. She was very white, and her voice was faint.
Our Counsel got his witnesses mixed, and asked Rose about the noise the old people made; which was what he was to have asked Jack, had he been called. Rose had refused to give evidence on this point, since she had not heard any noise.
‘What did you say, do speak up,’ said the Judge rudely. Rose’s lips moved, without sound. She was on the point of fainting. ‘I don’t hear it,’ she brought out at last.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know about the noise. What I know about is the mess in the bathroom.’
‘That was not what you were asked,’ said the Judge.
Rose looked at him in appeal, her tongue moving over her lips. Our Counsel hastily dismissed her, and Defence took her over.
‘You say you never hear any noise?’ he said.
Rose said: ‘Either I’m in or I’m out, so I don’t hear it.’
‘I fail to see the logic of that,’ said the Judge.
‘Kindly answer my question,’ said Counsel, with extreme sarcasm, delighted to find someone he could bully.
‘I’m out at the times they make their noise,’ she said.
‘Then how do you know they make it?’
‘Because Mrs Bolt tells me so.’
‘Then why did you claim to have heard it yourself?’
‘I never did,’ said Rose, She had got her colour back. Now she grasped the edge of the witness-box with both hands, took a breath and said with dignity: ‘You’re trying to make what I say sound how you want. But I said, I said all along, I’d only say what I know is the truth.’
‘It is correct,’ said the Judge, ‘that the witness did not claim to have heard the noise herself.’
Counsel fussed a little, and dismissed Rose, who slid into the bench beside me, clutched at my hand, and sat breathing deeply, trembling all over, her eyes shut.
There was a feeling of inconclusiveness in the air as the old lady went to the witness-box. The Judge leafed through his papers, and it seemed as if he might say, ‘People living together should use tolerance,’ as the last Judge had; and bind everyone over for a further period.
The old lady entered the witness-box as if the act of doing so was a protest of innocence. She took the oath with trembling fervour. She said she had never insulted Flo because she was a foreigner; and in the next breath that she would not have foreigners turning her out of her house. She said that as a decent British woman she never swore; and then delivered a fluent imitation of Dan at his best.
‘That will do,’ said the Judge frowning, so that the people in the Court who were smiling composed their faces.
He went on leafing over his notes, in a worried way, looking for some final conclusive point on which to deliver judgment. Besides, what could be done with the old people? But then, if they were undesirable, so, clearly, were Dan and Flo. The silence continued. Then the Judge made a gesture and the two Counsels both gave short summing-up speeches, for form’s sake, for it was clear that the Judge was not listening. He was peering at the old people and at Flo and Dan as if to say: ‘
Suddenly the old lady shot to her feet and announced loudly: ‘They are all in conspiracy against me.’
The old man painfully stretched up to pull her to her seat, but she shook him off, so violently he slid along the bench in a heap, and pointed to our lawyer and our Counsel, shouting: ‘They were telling the landlord to tell lies. I heard them.’
‘Please sit down,’ said the Judge.
‘In that room,’ shrieked the old lady, pointing a trembling finger across the Court. ‘They were there, I heard them, they were saying they must tell lies, the truth doesn’t matter, that’s what they said.’
Now the Judge looked really angry. ‘You can’t say things like that,’ he said.
The old lady burst into shrieks and oaths, dancing up and down between the wooden benches, and pointing
