‘Congo sees things,’ Tully Toffener repeated disingenuously to Brian. ‘He needs to be shut away for his own good. So does the old woman, before he manages to kill her off. Because that’s what he’s up to. And it gets up my nose. Not that I have a vested interest in keeping the old girl alive, on the contrary, but why should Congo Warby get away with it?’
‘Get away with what?’ asked Brian Moss, cautiously, in his soft, lawyer’s voice. He always spoke slowly, the better to wrong-foot both client and opposition should need arise. His mind moved quickly enough. Three thoughts for every one word.
‘Robbing my wife Sara,’ said Tully Toffener, ‘of her rightful inheritance.’
‘How is Mr Warby doing that?’ asked Brian Moss, as if he really wanted to know. Oh, he was good!
‘If the old bitch hadn’t remarried,’ said Tully, ‘Sara would have stood to inherit the tenancy of Lodestar House. Wendy’s her grandmother, her mother’s mother. Sara’s the only living relative. I mean to fight it, you know.’
Brian Moss allowed himself to sound puzzled.
‘But Congo Warby is the husband,’ he said, ‘and in residence, and your wife and yourself are adequately housed. More than adequately, if I may say so. I am not sure that you have much of a claim.’
‘Warby only married Wendy to get his hands on the Lodestar Avenue property,’ said Tully. ‘Everyone knows Wendy was in her dotage even then and that was twenty-eight years ago. I don’t see why Sara and I should be doomed to live in second class accommodation when Lodestar’s ours by right. Look, I’m calling from the House. I’ve got to get back to a Division in a mo: it’s a three-line-whip.’
Tully Toffener lived at a perfectly good address in Livermore Gate, W8. His round figure and bald pate appealed to the cartoonists; his whiny voice made him sound both earnest and honest; his clamping jaw intimidated: he had a full soft lower lip, very bright and pink.
‘What I was trying to say, Brian,’ said Tully, more reasonably, ‘is that when Sara goes round to see Wendy, Congo won’t let her in. He’s barricaded the place. He won’t even open the door to the social workers. They’re only trying to earn their living, poor bitches. Sara’s worried stiff about her Gran. The only people Congo lets in are the vermin, by whom I mean the dealers. They’re allowed to run in and out like mice, you bet they are, dragging the goodies away. You’ve got to do something.’
‘No one is by law required to answer the door to anyone,’ said Brian Moss temperately. ‘And we have no evidence that either of the parties is mad, bad or a danger to themselves or others.’
‘They’re a fucking danger to me,’ shouted Tully Toffener. ‘They’re disposing of my wife’s inheritance. Don’t give me that shit about old people not being paper parcels, having a will and rights of their own. If I had my way, everyone in this country over eighty would be tied up with string like the parcels they are, and put out of their misery. Get this pathetic old couple certified. Lock them up where they can be properly looked after. Get me power of attorney, Brian. There’s the division bell.’ And the phone clicked down.
Brian Moss turned to Jelly and said, ‘Human nature is a remarkable thing.’ As if Jelly didn’t know.
And Brian told Jelly what she knew already, for anyone can read the legal column in The Times, but Brian loved imparting information, about the shocking new legislation under which long-term tenants could buy the property in which they lived, at the price the property would have fetched at the time the tenancy began. ‘The old woman’s a socialist; she doesn’t believe in owning property. Drives Tully mad.’
‘What happens if she just does nothing?’ asked Jelly.
‘The property reverts to whoever owns it,’ said Brian.
‘And the opportunity of making a million or so simply vanishes. These days the law punishes non-activity when it comes to the possibility of making money for nothing.’
‘So, what will you do?’ I asked.
‘Tully’s the client,’ said Brian Moss cheerfully. ‘Ethically, my duty is to look after his interests. So I’ll do what I can to get the old folk out of their home. I’ll try and get Sara power of attorney so she can take over the tenancy, sell the property at a vast profit and inherit the money. The place is falling down, anyway. Gloomy old house. It needs to be developed. The future has to sweep away the past, sooner or later.’
It was becoming clear to Jelly that Brian Moss had the ethics of a buck rabbit. He was all too likely to screw her, in both senses of the word, with a clear conscience, as man and employer. Nor would he see either way as mutually exclusive. She was prepared to put up with it. She had an interesting and comparatively well-paid job, and had to earn a living somehow, though she had been advised by Barney Evans not to let it be known just how capable of doing such a thing Lady Rice was. Women claiming alimony must present themselves in two different ways at the same time, said Barney Evans, as hopelessly incompetent yet with expensive tastes. If a woman shows herself to be strong, independent and practical, she will be penalised. The less she can manage on, the less she will be given. The law, while preaching gender equality, favours the old tradition: that women are mythical creatures who can’t live without a new hat and who scream at the sight of a mouse. The more a woman conforms to this archetype, the better a judge will look after her.
Property disputes are almost a relief after the tangled distresses of matrimonial cases. The ‘different perspective’ of the different and differing parties in all kinds of litigation is to me, as it is to Brian Moss, a source of perpetual wonderment. If Toffener and Warby fight over property, it is because there is no space in our society left for fisticuffs, for physical confrontation, and so the law has to do it for us, metaphorically. But Rice v. Rice, matrimonial, is war against the self, and there can be no real victory in it on either side.
‘Except I suppose for Anthea,’ said Lady Rice to Jelly one evening, ‘horse-faced bitch; running her fingers up and down my husband’s spine, taking away what’s mine by right. What is this preoccupation of yours with Tully Toffener?’
‘I don’t like him,’ said Jelly, childlike, as if disliking justified everything. As happens with so many not very likeable to themselves, she spent a good deal of time disliking others. Lady Rice liked most people but, as she kept saying, to bored looks from such friends as she still had, ‘Much good has it ever done me.’
‘Let her get on with it,’ advised Angelica. ‘Jelly’s obsession with Tully seems to keep Angel away. We don’t really want any more of this Ram business or nights out on the tiles with strangers. Angel could get us all into real trouble. I’d encourage Jelly if I were you. Let her get on with Toffener v. Warby and Lodestar House.’
‘I’m a very insecure kind of person,’ lamented Lady Rice, with a rare flash of self-knowledge. ‘Really I have very little or no influence on anyone, not even myself. But I don’t like the way Jelly seems to be taking over. She’s competent but without imagination. Couldn’t you have a go, Angelica? I don’t suppose you like Tully Toffener either. Who does?’