‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Schoolmarms are old,’ Cassie pointed out. ‘Now, let’s see . . . What shall you wear?’ She searched in her wardrobe and produced the old grey suit Mother had bought her when she first went to work at Madame Alouette’s. Cassie had always hated it and called it ‘the elephant’ because she said it was so wrinkled and plain.
‘Do I have to wear the elephant?’ I said.
‘Try it. I think it will be tremendously ageing,’ said Cassie.
‘It’s tremendously enormous,’ I said, struggling into the voluminous skirt.
‘You can wear my high-necked white blouse underneath the jacket. That will have to hang loose, but we’ll pin the skirt here and there.’ Cassie pinched the sagging waistband and pinned it into place. When she’d finished, she made me peer into the looking glass.
‘There!’ she said proudly.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All I had to do was grow my nose and I’d be a dead ringer for Miss Mountbank. But I certainly looked older, and that was really all that mattered today, so I gave Cassie a kiss. She looked splendid herself, though a little more subdued than usual, in her black velvet two-piece. She normally wore it with a pink blouse, a pink silk rosette pinned on the jacket, and a pink ribbon threaded through her hair – ‘But I don’t want to look too frivolous today,’ she said.
Mother wore black too: her best winter coat with a black and grey striped skirt. Cassie needed to pin this at the waist too, because she’d lost a lot of weight since Father was arrested.
We looked as if we were going to a funeral. Certainly that was the way it felt. When we set out to get the bus, everyone in the street stared at us curiously. Some might simply have been wondering where we going looking so smart and sombre, but others nudged each other and whispered, and it was clear they knew our destination. The terrible Mrs Liversedge came rushing out of her house, calling loudly, ‘Off to court, dears? Well, I wish you luck. Maybe he’ll get a light sentence.’
We ignored her and hurried on down the road.
‘Or maybe he’ll be locked up for life,’ she called after us.
Mother gave a little gasp.
‘Take no notice. She’s being ridiculous. You don’t get locked up for life for embezzlement,’ I said fiercely.
It took longer than we’d expected to get to the courthouse where the quarter sessions were heard. It was gone ten o’clock when we arrived. We stared up at the forbidding building and clasped hands.
‘In we go,’ said Cassie. ‘You stay in the middle, Opie, so you don’t stick out too much.’
The clerk at the door was so taken up with looking at Cassie and giving her instructions on how to reach the public gallery that he didn’t give Mother a second look, let alone me. I scurried past all the same and led the way up the stairs to the gallery. Because of its name I thought it would be teeming with members of the public, out for a spot of salacious entertainment, but it was half empty. Little clumps of people sat here and there with pale, anxious faces, clearly relatives as wound up and worried as we were.
We stared down at the man in the dock, but it wasn’t Father. It was a poor cringing soul with a purple birth mark over half his face. We listened to a policeman in the witness box reading from his notebook. He’d seen the poor wretch run to the middle of the bridge over the Thames, haul himself up onto the parapet and then jump. The policeman had then dashed to the riverbank, removed his jacket and boots, and dived in to save him.
‘I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted to end it all,’ said the man in the dock, but the judge shouted, ‘Silence!’ and wouldn’t let him explain further.
‘Poor man!’ I whispered indignantly.
‘Shush!’ Mother hissed. ‘We’re not allowed to talk.’
It was difficult to keep quiet, especially when the man was sentenced for the ‘crime’ of trying to commit suicide, but at least the judge was merciful and gave him just one week’s imprisonment.
Perhaps Father might be sentenced to just one week too. Oh, how wonderful that would be!
The next trial was a complicated robbery case, with a man and a woman in the dock. I tried to concentrate, but there were too many confusing stories, and too many witnesses giving conflicting evidence. I peered at the jury, wondering if they could seriously follow all the ins and outs of the case. At lunch time it still wasn’t anywhere near finished.
‘What if it goes on all day long?’ Cassie wondered as we sipped a bowl of soup in the small café across the road.
‘I can’t stomach this waiting,’ said Mother, laying down her spoon.
‘Well, imagine what it’s like for Father, locked up in some dingy cell,’ I said.
‘Eat, Mother. You need to keep your strength up,’ said Cassie. ‘And you watch that soup, Opie. I don’t want you slurping it all down my white blouse.’
We carried on bickering throughout our hasty meal. The people in the café seemed to be watching us. I suppose it was easy to guess from our general demeanour that we had a loved one due to appear in court. We couldn’t stand their stares and left without finishing our soup.
The robbery case continued for more than an hour, and then the jury deliberated, but they reached a verdict quickly and the judge sentenced the woman to a year’s penal servitude and the man to two years’ hard labour.
‘Hard labour?’ Cassie whispered. ‘What does that mean? It sounds horrible.’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Perhaps he has to do hard labour because he’s a hardened criminal. I suppose it’s working very hard with pickaxes.’
Mother gave a little moan.
‘It’s all right, Mother. They won’t give Father hard labour – he’s a gentleman,’ I said, praying that this was true. ‘The robbery man knocked someone over and beat him unconscious. Father hasn’t hurt anyone. He just wrote out a cheque, for goodness’ sake. It’s a total travesty of justice that he’s had to spend all these weeks in prison. I’m sure the judge will see this and let him off with a caution.’ I thought if I said it firmly enough, over and over again, it might just possibly come true.
Then, at last, Father’s case was announced and he was led into the courtroom. I thought at first they’d made a mistake and brought out the wrong prisoner. This was surely a very old man, a good decade older than Father, and his hair was all wrong – my father had a fine head of silky brown hair. This poor prisoner had white hair, and it was cut brutally short, almost to the scalp.
‘That’s not Father!’ I declared.
I was immediately shushed by the clerk upstairs. ‘You!’ he hissed, pointing at me. ‘Silence, or I will have you evicted.’
‘It is Father,’ Cassie whispered in my ear. Tears were running down her cheeks. ‘Poor dear Father, what have they done to him?’
Mother had her hands clasped and was rocking to and fro on her hard seat, her eyes shut.
Another clerk was reading out the charge against Father. He spoke for a long time. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Father had simply written out one cheque, but now they seemed to be saying that he had done far more. They were talking about false entries in record books going back years, accusing him of serious long-term embezzlement, saying he’d pocketed vast sums.
‘No! Not Father!’ I said aloud, but quietly enough for the clerk upstairs to ignore me.
‘How do you plead?’
Father scarcely seemed to be listening. He was peering around the court in a dazed fashion, perhaps wondering where he was and how he had got there. He had to be asked a second time.
He jerked to attention. ‘Guilty!’ he said.
‘No! No, no, no – he’s just guilty of writing one cheque,’ I whispered desperately. I ran over to the clerk. ‘Please, there’s been a terrible mistake. My father isn’t guilty, not to all those charges. You must stop the trial and explain this to the judge.’
The clerk held me by the arms. ‘Stop this nonsense. You cannot interrupt a trial. Now sit down and be quiet or I shall remove you from this courthouse
.’
There was nothing more I could do. I had to listen in silent agony while the head of Father’s shipping office and various weaselly-looking clerks gave evidence. It became horribly clear what was happening. When Father’s naïve attempt at embezzlement was discovered, the accountant had gone through the company’s books and discovered many more fraudulent entries. These were nothing to do with Father. Some dated back to long before he was even employed at the wretched firm.
I willed Father to sit up and take notice and argue the point, but he still seemed in a stupor, clearly fuddled and ill. I ached to go and comfort him. Cassie held my hand tightly. Mother rocked to and fro, eyes still shut, fists clenched, whispering to herself. Perhaps she was praying – but Father now seemed beyond heavenly help.
The shipping clerks continued to give evidence, insisting that Father was the only man who had access to all the account books and declaring on oath that the false entries were in his hand.
When at last Father himself was cross-examined, he could not give a proper account of himself.
‘I was hoping to pay it back. I simply wanted happy days for my family,’ he kept repeating, not even listening to the questions properly.
He looked baffled when the prosecution lawyer insisted he had engaged in long-term embezzlement.
‘I don’t think so. I wrote the cheque, that is all. I don’t understand what you mean,’ Father said.
‘Oh, I think you understand all too well. You have systematically used your mathematical skills to produce plausible accounts, while stealing vast amounts from your trusting employers over many years,’ said the lawyer.
‘Not vast amounts,’ said Father, at last concentrating properly. ‘One cheque, that is all. There must be some mistake.’
‘You made the mistake, my good sir. You grew careless because you’d been undetected for so long and did not even take the trouble to cover your tracks writing out the latest cheque. You wilfully stole from your employers, year after year – admit it now.’
‘I’m guilty of writing the one cheque, I’ve said that all along, but nothing else, I swear it,’ said Father.
‘Then how do you account for the vast financial losses over the years, the fraudulent entries in your own hand, sir?’
‘We all use copperplate. My hand is indistinguishable from any other clerk’s.’
‘Are you implying that one of these other good hard-working men is equally corrupt?’
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I breathed.
But Father tried hard to be fair. ‘I cannot imply anything, for I have no proof,’ he said quietly.
They had no real proof against Father, either. It did not seem to matter, even though this was a court of justice. The judge kept consulting his pocket watch, clearly keen for the proceedings to be over. I stared at this wizened little man in his ridiculous robes and wig. It seemed ludicrous that he had the right to sentence my poor father. He didn’t even know him. He wasn’t concerned with the ins and outs of the case. He ordered no further investigation of the other clerks, no re-examination of the fraudulent entries. Surely it should be clear to everyone in the court that my father was telling the truth. He was a weak man who, in a moment of desperation, had made one botched attempt at embezzlement. He wasn’t a long-term cool-headed thief. He was an honest man who had admitted his guilt immediately.
It did not matter. The jury did not believe him.
‘Ernest Horace Plumstead, I sentence you to one year’s hard labour,’ said the judge. ‘Court dismissed.’
I COULDN’T SLEEP at all that night. The words ‘hard labour’ echoed on and on in my head. I thought of Father, already looking so old and frail, trying to heave a pickaxe. I remembered pictures in old books of prisoners chained together, manacled at the ankles, being beaten by a cruel overseer. Did that still happen? My poor father would be dead within days. And all on a trumped-up charge. He had written one wretched cheque, that was all. He was bearing the burden of someone else’s wickedness.
In the middle of the night I went into Mother’s room. She was lying on her front, weeping into her pillow. When I put my head on it next to hers, I found it was wet with her tears.
‘Don’t cry so, Mother. I’ve been planning what to do in my head. We must go to a lawyer tomorrow, a new one. The one supposedly defending Father was worse than useless. We will appeal. I’m sure you can do that. We will make them reconsider Father’s case. It was a total travesty of justice. We will make another judge understand, and they will trap whoever the real embezzler is, and then they will let Father go. He’s already served enough time for the little crime he’s committed. We’ll have him returned home to us in no time.’
‘Oh, Opal, I know you mean to be helpful, but you’re talking nonsense,’ said Mother, crushing me.
‘I’m not, Mother. I’ve thought it all out so carefully,’ I said.
‘Well, you haven’t thought it out quite carefully enough,’ she said. ‘How are we going to pay for this new lawyer? Answer me that. Do you think your wages from Fairy Glen and my wretched washerwoman’s pittance will foot his bill?’
I hadn’t even thought about payment. I blushed with shame, but I still wouldn’t give up.
‘Then we will press for an appeal without a lawyer. We’ll argue our own case. I am sure there are law books in the public library. I shall read them all. I’ll make myself understand. I’ll look up all the hard words in a dictionary and learn how to use them properly. I’m good at it, you know I am. We’ll go to court and defend Father.’ I saw myself making an impassioned speech, quoting former legal cases while the judge listened open-mouthed at my erudition and the jurors wept in pity.
‘Don’t be such a little fool, Opal,’ said Mother. ‘You’re not even allowed in court – you’re still a child. Now go back to bed. There’s nothing we can do to help Father now.’
‘Don’t you even care?’ I said. ‘What sort of a wife are you?’
‘How dare you!’ Mother rose up in bed. ‘How dare you say such a thing to me?’ she shrieked, and she tried to slap my face.
She couldn’t see properly in the dark and she was clumsy with exhaustion anyway, so her hand hit my shoulder instead. It didn’t really hurt but it set me screaming.
‘For goodness’ sake, what are you two doing?’ Cassie cried, rushing into the room.
‘Mother hit me,’ I wailed.
‘I simply gave her a slap,’ said Mother. ‘And she deserved it too.’
‘I’m just trying to find ways of helping Father. Mother won’t even listen,’ I said.
‘Stop it, both of you,’ said Cassie. ‘Don’t cry, Mother. Here.’ She caught hold of both of us and held us tight. ‘Stop fighting.’
We all ended up huddled together in Mother’s bed. I still bitterly resented Mother’s rejection, but in the morning I could see that my grandiose legal plans were nonsense. Instead, I wrote a long letter to the judge, explaining that my father was innocent of almost all the crimes mentioned in court. I begged the judge to reduce his sentence at the very least, because penal servitude would kill such a frail gentleman. I posted the letter – but never got any response.
I looked so dreadful in the morning that I was utterly convincing when I told Mr Beeston that I’d been ill the previous day.
‘Yes, you still look a bit peaky, you poor little tuppenny,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you ought to trot straight back to bed?’
I didn’t want to be at Fairy Glen, but I didn’t want to be at home, either, not with Mother weeping into her washing. Besides, I didn’t get paid if I wasn’t at work.
‘I think I can manage a day moulding, Mr Beeston,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s the spirit, missy. I wish all my girls had your attitude. You’re an example to them all, Opal Plumstead.’
I hoped very much that he wouldn’t come into the fondant room later and extol my virtues. It would make the other girls hate me more than ever.
I put on my cap and overall and trudged across the factory floor.
‘Hey, sweetheart, why the long face?’ said Freddy.
‘I’m not your sweetheart, Freddy. I’m your friend,’ I told him wearily.
‘You and I were meant for each other, whatever you say.’ He reached out and touched the corners of my mouth.
‘Don’t!’
‘I’m just trying to make you smile. You don’t look like my pretty girl with that frowning face,’ said Freddy.
I made an effort to smile but it was too much of a struggle.
‘Hey, is something really wrong?’ he said more seriously. ‘Where were you yesterday? I didn’t see you.’
I hesitated. He was so kind that, for a second or two, I considered telling him everything. Perhaps he wouldn’t be horrified. Perhaps he’d pat me on the back and tell me he was sure my father was innocent too. Perhaps.
The moment passed.
‘I’m not very well. I think it’s just a cold,’ I said. ‘I’d better get to work.’ I hurried away up the narrow staircase.
‘Hello, Opal,’ said Geoff. ‘We missed you yesterday. Were you ill, then, dear?’
I nodded. I must have looked pale and wan because he patted me gently on the shoulder.
‘You take it easy today. I can see you’re still feeling dicky.’
I found my moulding stick and starting working on a starch box. The other girls ignored me. They generally didn’t initiate the goading. They left that to Patty, and she was her customary ten minutes late. She usually arrived at Fairy Glen spot on time, but she’d spend ten minutes in the ladies’ room titivating and then come sauntering up to the fondant room when she chose.
Today she was even later than usual. She came into the fondant room holding the Daily News, reading as she walked.
‘Watch out, Pattacake, you’ll barge straight into the boxes,’ said Geoff.
‘Yes, look where you’re going, girl,’ added George.
‘I’m too engrossed,’ said Patty, and she glanced up at me. I saw the gleam in her eye.
Oh Lord, was there something about Father’s trial in the national newspapers? I’d been dreading the local paper at the end of the week, but I’d never dreamed that his sad case would be written up for all to see from John o’ Groats to Land’s End. And the worst person in the whole of Britain was reading about it right before my eyes.