Read Online Swan River by David Reynolds - Free Book Online

right, you win and I hope we will continue to receive your custom.’
    When the Sketchley case looked like actually going to court, my mother encouraged him to drop it, not because she thought he wouldn’t win, but because she knew that it would raise his already high emotional temperature. ‘Is it really worth it?’
    â€˜They tore my shirts. You’ve seen them, Exhibits A, B, C and D. It’s a matter of principle. Why should this greedy chain of capitalists get away with that?’ He lowered his voice. ‘You may have to be a witness, you know, to prove they weren’t torn already.’
    She sighed and carried on mashing potatoes. He sauntered out into the garden to look at the budgerigars. I followed.
    Reynolds versus Sketchley eventually came up at the County Court in Aylesbury. My mother declined to take a day off work to attend and I had to be at school. My father left wearing his dark suit, which only looked its age from close to, and his Savage Club tie. He returned that evening carrying red roses for my mother and a small transistor radio for me, the thing I wanted more than anything. He had not just won the case, presenting it himself against a fancy London barrister, but had been awarded an astonishing amount of costs. The judge had found in his favour and then enquired what work he did and how much he was paid for it; he must surely have lost some time at work preparing his case. My father told him that he was partly paid in commission. Forty pounds was added to the eight pounds’ worth of shirts for that, and then the judge revealed that he knew my father was a writer of some repute.
    â€˜When do you fit your writing in, Mr Reynolds?’
    Truthfully he answered, ‘In the early mornings, milud. I get up at 5 am.’
    â€˜And how much of your early-morning-writing time has been wasted on this case?’
    â€˜Probably four or five days milud.’
    â€˜And how much did you earn from your last book?’
    Again truthfully, ‘My advance was one thousand pounds, but it sold rather well. I netted six thousand, four hundred pounds milud.’ Eyebrows were raised – this was more than twice the judge’s own salary – but the Sketchley barrister, presumably accepting that he had lost thoroughly, stayed silent and my father had no need to mention that, despite writing almost every day, he hadn’t had a book published since 1949.
    The judge fiddled with pencil and paper. ‘I award sixty pounds for Mr Reynolds’ loss of earnings as a writer. The defendant will pay a total of one hundred pounds in costs.’
    This was more than my father earned in a good month, and, as he repeatedly pointed out, it was tax-free. Celebrations continued as the local paper reported ‘Local David Slays Dry-Cleaning Goliath’, and my father took my mother and me to a department store in Reading where we each spent £10 on new clothes – I bought two pairs of jeans, a sweater and a maroon waterproof jacket called a windcheater, with a collar that turned up over my ears.
    On the way home my father lost his temper with a van-driver because he was forced to brake when the van cut in front of us. My father swore at him and drove fast, overtaking other cars in an effort to keep up with him. I was in the passenger seat and could see the anger on his face. From the back my mother called to him to slow down; there was no point in endangering us all.
    He turned and looked at her angrily – and drove on in a greater fury, cursing the traffic in his way.
    He caught up with the van at some traffic lights, drove alongside it, hooted, pulled down his window, shouted at the man that his driving was a disgrace, and called him a stupid bastard. The van-driver got out, walked round to my father, yelled ‘Watch who you call a stupid bastard’, and punched him in the face. He got back in his van and drove off as my father’s nose bled all over his shirt.