health.’ He added with a twinkle: ‘May your children be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and your goats and cattle even more numerous.’
Mahoney laughed and slapped the black man on the shoulder. ‘Thank you, Mr Obote!’
Mrs Chan piped up, blushing: ‘Mr Mahoney, Mr Fothergill, Mr Obote, I wish you good health and happiness.’
Mahoney took a weary breath and muttered, ‘Let’s get it over with.’ He leant forward and addressed the mess to his left. ‘Mr Senior of the Upper Mess, may I interrupt your scintillating conversation by proposing a toast?’
‘Why, certainly, Mr Senior, if you can tear yourself away from the illuminations of your own mess.’
‘With difficulty, Mr Senior.’ He read from the list: ‘Mr Johnson, Mr Patel, Mr Patel, and Mr Patel – may your cups run over with happiness and may your seed, both severally and jointly, be more numerous than the stars in the sky, your progeny even more fertile, and theirs after them, and your herds even more prolific than the whole damn lot of you put together.’ He added, ‘All this in your lifetime.’
He drank. The two messes were laughing, except Mr Fothergill. Mahoney then turned the other way and said, ‘Mr Senior of the Lower Mess, may I pray your silence while I drink to your sterling health? …’
And so on. Lord, Mahoney thought, this is supposed to train lawyers?
Finally they were through the dessert and on to the coffee and port. Then the shouting started.
‘Up, Junior!’
But Mr Junior of the lowermost mess, the person closest to the door, studiously ignored the call.
‘Up Junior! … Come on, Junior! …’
For five minutes the shouting went on. Finally Mr Junior stood up. Except Mr Junior was a woman. Immediately the jeering and bellowing began.
‘Mr Senior,’ Ms Junior shouted across the hall, ‘may we have permission to smoke?’
The boos and jeers drowned her. Mr Senior of the uppermost mess studiously ignored the request.
‘Louder, Junior!’
Ms Junior shouted again and the boos and jeers doubled.
‘On the table, Junior!’
Ms Junior was looking very embarrassed, though she was smiling. She climbed on to her chair, put her hands to her mouth and bellowed.
‘Mr Senior, may we have permission to smoke?’
‘Shut up, Junior!’ ‘Louder, Junior!’ Mahoney put on his spectacles and looked at Mr Senior of the uppermost mess. He was sipping his port as if nothing was happening. Mahoney looked at Ms Junior, and he felt sorry for her. She was about thirty, ten years older than the youngsters ragging her, and Mahoney thought she was beautiful. She had tawny hair in a bun and her embarrassed smile was wide. Now she was clambering up on to the table. She was tall, with good legs.
‘Mr Senior!’ she bellowed – but Mahoney could only see her mouth moving. He sighed. This was supposed to teach law-students the art of public speaking? Mr Senior was looking up as if he had just noticed something.
‘I beg your pardon, Junior?’
Laughter and sudden silence. She started again: ‘May we’ – and the gleeful catcalls burst out again.
‘Smoke?’ Mr Senior said, looking puzzled. ‘Oh, very well.’
The woman climbed down off the table, and blew out her cheeks.
Mr Mahoney began to get up. ‘Well, Mrs Chan and gentlemen, excuse me …’
‘One moment, Mr Mahoney, please!’ Mr Fothergill said. He stood up. He bellowed: ‘Mr Senior in Hall!’ The hall fell silent. Fothergill shouted: ‘I have two serious charges to make against Mr Mahoney … Firstly, when proposing a toast to our mess, he first addressed Mrs Chan, who is Junior of our mess, instead of first addressing me. Secondly, he is wearing a grey pinstriped suit.’
Mr Fothergill sat down, grinning.
‘Mr Mahoney,’ Senior in Hall intoned, ‘how do you answer these weighty allegations?’
Mahoney stood up.
‘Mr Senior,’ he shouted, ‘they are as weightless as the area between Mr Fothergill’s ears.’ (Laughter.) ‘Surely it is customary, even in those dark corners of England which Mr Fothergill hails from, to address a lady first? If I am wrong, I am glad to be so, and my only regret is that I had to toast Mr Fothergill at all.’ (Laughter.) ‘As to the second charge, my suit is not grey pinstripe, but a white suit with a broad grey stripe in it. I am in the ice-cream business, you see.’
He sat down midst more laughter. Senior in Hall passed judgement.
‘On the first charge you are cautioned. On the second, you are fined a bottle of port.’
Mahoney signalled to the waiter … At the next table a young man was standing and shouting:
‘Mr Senior, I have a most weighty complaint. This gentleman – and I use that in the loosest possible sense of the word – stole my bread roll!’
‘Goodnight, everybody,’ Mahoney whispered to the mess. He turned, bowed to Senior in Hall, and hurried out. He handed his gown back. As he emerged from the robing room, the beautiful woman was coming out of the hall.
‘Well done,’ he smiled at her sympathetically.
She rolled her lovely eyes. ‘Isn’t it a laugh-a-minute?’ He caught a trace of an Australian accent.
Mahoney hurried on through the courtyard, out into Holborn. He half regretted that he had not struck up a conversation with the tawny Australian. But what was the point?
He got into his car, and sat there a minute, not relishing what he had to do now.
The house was in Hampstead, but the consulting-room was small. ‘It’s very good of you to see me so late, Dr Jacobson,’ Mahoney said.
‘The name’s Fred.’ He was unsmiling. ‘I don’t know what you expect of this meeting. Every patient’s problem is confidential, so I can’t tell you what’s wrong with Shelagh – if anything. You’re not really consulting me as a patient, so’ – he looked at his watch – ‘the quickest will be if I ask you questions, like you do in court. I warn you, some of them may be painful.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh? O.K. Why’s your marriage on the rocks?’
Mahoney was taken aback. On the rocks! This expert thought it was that bad?
‘Shelagh hates living in England,’ he said.
‘Why? And what can you do about it?’
Mahoney sighed. ‘The weather. The people. She feels they’re narrow. The cost of living … Our house. My job.’
‘And?’
‘And’, Mahoney said, ‘she misses her job in African Education.’
‘The last thing you mention. Because you consider it unimportant? And why aren’t you living in Australia, like you promised?’
Mahoney had to control his irritation with the man.
‘Look, I couldn’t sell the Britannia, so I set up the cargo company as insurance and went to Australia and had a good look. And I decided against the place. They’re nice people but they’ve got nothing to worry about except keeping up with the Joneses.’
‘And why haven’t you re-qualified as a lawyer?’
‘Because’, Mahoney said wearily, ‘I’m in the airline business whether I like it or not. I have to make it work. Look,