by Pat Barker
Manning moved across to the fireplace. On the way he noticed the letter and picked it up again, wondering once more who would have written to this address. There were no outstanding bills. Everybody knew he was at the club. He began to open it, thinking he should probably ask the builder to do something about the dent in the wall where the vase had struck. Inside the envelope, instead of the expected sheet of paper, was a newspaper cutting. He turned it the right way up and read:
THE CULT OF THE CLITORIS
To be a member of Maud Allen’s private performance in Oscar Wilde’s Salome one has to apply to a Miss Valetta, of 9 Duke Street, Adelphi, WC. If Scotland Yard were to seize the list of these members I have no doubt they would secure the names of several thousand of the first 47,000.
He’d seen the paragraph before. It had been reproduced – usually without the heading – in several respectable newspapers, though it had originated in the Vigilante, Pemberton Billing’s dreadful rag. Maud Allan – they hadn’t even spelt her name right – was sueing Pemberton Billing for libel. A grave mistake, in Manning’s view, because once in the witness-box Pemberton Billing could accuse anybody with complete impunity. He would be immune from prosecution. The people he named would not. Of course you could see it from Maud Allan’s point of view. She would be ruined if she didn’t sue. She was probably ruined anyway.
The question was, why had it been sent to him, and by whom? The postmark told him nothing useful. There was no covering letter. Manning dropped the cutting on the sofa, then picked it up again, holding the flimsy yellowing page between his thumb and forefinger. He wiped his upper lip on the back of his hand. Then he turned to the mirror as if to consult himself and, because he’d left the drawing-room door open, found himself looking into a labyrinth of repeated figures. His name was on that list. He was going to Salome, and not simply as an ordinary member of the public, but in the company of Robert Ross who, as Oscar Wilde’s literary executor, had authorized the performance.
Immediately he began to ask himself whether there was an honourable way out, but then he thought, no, that’s no use. To back out now would simply reveal the extent of his fear to to to… to whoever was watching. For obviously somebody was. Somebody had known to send the cutting here.
Prior worked in the Intelligence Unit with Major Lode. Perhaps that had something to do with it? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything, that was the devil of it.
The bell rang. Still holding the page, Manning went to the door. A thin, spry, greying man, with rheumy blue eyes and ‘a top o’ the morning to you, sorr’ expression, stood on the step.
‘Captain Manning?’ He took off his cap. ‘O’Brien, sir. I’ve come about the repairs.’
Manning became aware that he was gaping. He swallowed, pushed the cutting into his tunic pocket, and said, ‘Yes, of course. Come in.’
He showed O’Brien the crack in the wall, feeling almost too dazed to follow what he was saying. He made himself concentrate. It was a load-bearing wall.
‘How long do you think it’ll take?’
O’Brien pursed his lips. ‘Three days. Normally. Trouble is, you see, sir, you can’t get the lads. Williams now.’ O’Brien shook his head sadly. ‘Good worker in his day. The nipper. Willing lad. Not forward for his age. Samuels.’ O’Brien tapped his chest. ‘Dust gets on his lungs.’
‘How long?’
‘Fortnight? Three weeks?’
‘When can you start?’
‘Any time, sir. Would Monday suit you?’
It had to be said O’Brien was a man who inspired instant mistrust. I hope I’m doing the right thing, Manning thought, showing him to the door. He went back to look at the crack again. In the course of exploring its load-bearing properties O’Brien had dislodged a great quantity of plaster. Manning looked down at the grey dust. He was beginning to suspect O’Brien’s real talent might be for demolition. Oh, what does it matter, he thought. His fingers closed round the cutting and he brought it out again. He’d remembered that, a couple of months ago, when the article about the Black Book and the 47,000 had first appeared, Robert Ross had been sent a copy. Just like this. Anonymously. No covering letter. He walked to the window and looked into the garden. There was a curious tension about this yellow light, as if there might be thunder in the offing. And the bushes – all overgrown, there’d been no proper pruning done for years – were motionless, except for the very tips of their branches that twitched ominously, like cats’ tails. A few drops of rain began to fall, splashing on to the dusty terrace. A memory struggled to surface. Of sitting somewhere in the dust and rain beginning to fall. Drops had splashed on to his face and hands and he’d started to cry, but tentatively, not sure if this was the right response. And then a nursery maid came running and swept him up.
He’d ask Ross tonight whether he’d received a cutting, or knew of anybody else who had. Not that it would be reassuring. Ross was a dangerous person to know, and would become more dangerous as the hysteria over the Pemberton Billing case mounted. The prudent thing would be to drop him altogether. Somehow, articulating this clearly for the first time helped enormously. Of course he wasn’t going to drop Ross. Of course he was going to Salome. It was a question of courage in the end.
Why to the house? Anybody who knew him well enough to know his name would be on the list of subscribers must also know he was staying at his club. But then perhaps they also knew he visited the house regularly, to check that everything was all right, and… other things.
He mustn’t fall into the trap of overestimating what they knew. At the moment he was doing their job for them.
Opening the letter like this in his own home was in some ways a worse experience than opening it at the club would have been. His damaged house leaked memories of Jane and the children, and of himself too, as he had been before the war, memories so vivid in comparison with his present depleted self that he found himself moving between pieces of shrouded furniture like his own ghost.
There was nothing to be gained by brooding like this. He made sure the fallen plaster was caught on the dust-sheet and had not seeped underneath to be trodden into the carpet, shuttered the windows, replaced the photograph beneath the dust-sheet, and let himself out.
Rain was falling. As he left the square and started to walk briskly down the Bayswater Road, reflections of buildings and shadows of people shone fuzzily in the pavements, as if another city lay trapped beneath the patina of water and grease. He kept his head down, thinking he would go to see Ross tonight, and remembering too that he was due to see Rivers next week. He passed the Lancaster Gate underground with its breath of warm air, and walked on.
In Oxford Street a horse had fallen between the shafts of a van and was struggling feebly to get to its feet. The usual knot of bystanders had gathered. He was going to be all right. He was…
Suddenly, the full force of the intrusion into his home struck at him, and he was cowering on the pavement of Oxford Street as if a seventy-hour bombardment were going on. He pretended to look in a shop window, but he didn’t see anything. The sensation was extraordinary, one of the worst attacks he’d ever had. Like being naked, high up on a ledge, somewhere, in full light, with beneath him only jeering voices and millions of eyes.
THREE
Prior sat in the visitors’ waiting-room at Aylesbury Prison, right foot resting on his left knee, hands clasping his ankle, and stared around him. The shabbiness of this room was in marked contrast to the brutal but impressive blood-and-bandages facade of the prison, though the shabbiness too was designed to intimidate. Everything – the chipped green paint, the scuffed no-colour floor, the nailed-down chairs – implied that those who visited criminals were probably criminals themselves. A notice on the wall informed them of the conditions under which they might be searched.
Prior looked down at his greatcoat and flicked away an imaginary speck of dust. This was not the battered and stained garment that Myra had so foolishly refused to lie on, but an altogether superior version wh
ich had cost two months’ salary. In these circumstances, it was worth every penny.
The door opened and the wardress came in. With very slightly exaggerated courtesy, Prior rose to his feet. Sad but true, that nothing puts a woman in her place more effectively than a chivalrous gesture performed in a certain manner.
‘Yes, well, it does seem to be in order,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Good.’
‘If you’d like to come this way.’
He reached the door first and held it open. He wasn’t inclined to waste sympathy on her, this middle-aged, doughy-skinned woman. She had her own power, after all, more absolute than any he possessed. If she were humiliated now, no doubt some clapped-out old whore would be made to pay.
He followed her down the corridor and out into the yard.
‘That’s the women’s block,’ she said, pointing.
A gloomy, massive building. Six rows of windows, small and close together, like little piggy eyes. Prior looked at the yard. ‘But surely the men can see the women when they exercise?’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘They can’t see out of the windows. They’re too high up for that.’
He asked her one or two questions about the way the prison was run, how the shift system worked, whether transport to the prison was provided. It had occurred to him that it might not be some anonymous whore who paid for his victory, but the woman he had come to see, and he was anxious to avoid that. ‘Shift working must be quite difficult,’ he said. ‘Particularly for women.’
They stood in the cold yard while he got the story of her ailing mother. Then he held the door of the women’s block open for her, and this time she blushed instead of bridling, since the gesture was being offered in a different spirit. Or she thought it was.
Another corridor. ‘I know this is terribly irregular,’ he said. ‘A man seeing a female prisoner alone. But you do understand, don’t you? It is a matter of security…’
‘Oh, yes, yes. The only reason I questioned it was her being confined to the cell. We know all about security. We’ve had a leader of the Irish rebellion in here.’ An internal struggle, then she burst out, ‘She was a countess.’
Her face lit up with all the awe and deference of which the English working class is capable. Oh dear oh dear.
‘Roper’s a different kettle of fish,’ she went on. ‘Common as muck.’
They went through another set of doors and into a large hall. Prior would have liked some warning of this. He’d expected another corridor, another room. Instead he found himself standing at the bottom of what felt like a pit. The high walls were ringed with three tiers of iron landings, studded by iron doors, linked by iron staircases. In the centre of the pit sat a wardress who, simply by looking up, could observe every door. Prior’s escort went across and spoke to her colleague.
Prior looked around him, wondering what sort of women needed to be kept in a place like this. Prostitutes, thieves, girls who ‘overlaid’ their babies, abortionists who stuck their knitting needles into something vital – did they really need to be here? A bell rang. Behind him the doors opened and a dozen or so women trudged into the room, diverging into two lines as they reached the stairs to the first landing. They wore identical grey smocks that covered them from neck to ankle and blended with the iron grey of the landings, so that the women looked like columns of moving metal. Evidently they were not allowed to speak, and for a while there was no sound except for the clatter of their boots on the stairs, and a chorus of coughs.
Then a youngish woman turned her head and noticed him. Instantly, a stir of excitement ran along the lines, like the rise of hair along a dog’s spine. They broke ranks and came crowding to the railings, shouting down comments on what they could see, and speculations on the size of what they couldn’t. Somebody suggested he might like to settle the matter by getting it out. Then a short square-headed woman jostled her way to the front and lifted her smock to her shoulders, high enough for it to become apparent that His Majesty’s bounty did not extend to the provision of knickers. She jabbed her finger repeatedly towards the mound of thinning hair. Then a whistle blew, wardresses came running, and the women were hustled back into line. The tramp of feet started again, and soon the landings were empty and silent, except for the banging of doors and the rattle of keys in locks. The entire incident had taken less than three minutes.
Prior’s wardress came back. ‘That’s a relief,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to feel like a pork chop in a famine.’
This did not go down well. ‘Roper’s on the top landing,’ she said.
Their boots clanged on the stairs. Looking down now at the empty landings, Prior was puzzled by a sense of familiarity that he couldn’t place. Then he remembered. It was like the trenches. No Man’s Land seen through a periscope, an apparently empty landscape which in fact held thousands of men. That misleading emptiness had always struck him as uncanny. Even now, as he tramped along the third landing, he felt the prickle of hair in the nape of his neck.
The wardress-stopped outside No. 39. She bent and peered through the peephole before unlocking the door. ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to lock you in. When you’re finished just bang on the door. I’ll be along at the end. Good loud bang, mind.’ She hesitated. ‘She’s been on hunger strike. You’ll find her quite weak.’
He followed the wardress into the room. It seemed very dark, though a small, high, barred window set into the far wall let in a shaft of light. The reflection of the bars was black on the floor, then suddenly faded, as a wisp of cloud drifted across the sun. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he saw a grey figure huddled on the plank bed, one skinny arm thrown across its face. Apart from the bed, the only other furnishing was a bucket, smelling powerfully of urine and faeces.
‘Roper?’
The figure on the bed neither moved nor spoke.
‘This is Lieutenant Prior. He’s come to talk to you.’
Still no response. For a moment he thought she was dead, and he’d arrived too late. He said, ‘I’m from the Ministry of Munitions.’
Her face remained hidden. ‘Then you’d better bugger off back there, then, hadn’t you?’
The wardress clicked her tongue. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. She glanced round the bare cell. ‘Do you want a chair?’
‘No, I can manage.’
‘He’ll not be stopping long enough to need a chair.’
The door banged shut. He listened for the sound of retreating footsteps. He walked closer to the bed. ‘You know, if you co-operate, there could be a chance of remission.’
Silence.
‘That’s if you give us the information we need.’
Her eyes stayed shut. ‘I’ve told you once already. Bugger off back to London you greasy, arse-licking little sod.’
At last he heard the clump of boots on the landing. ‘Prison hasn’t done much for your language has it, Beattie?’
Her eyes opened. He moved so that the light from the window fell directly on to his face.
‘Billy?’
He went closer. She looked him up and down, even touched his sleeve, while a whole army of conflicting emotions fought for possession of her face. She settled for the simplest. Hatred of the uniform. ‘Your dad must be turning in his grave.’
‘Well, I expect he would be if he was in it. He isn’t, he’s alive and kicking. My mother, mainly.’ She’d never liked him to talk about his father’s treatment of his mother. Now, with that remark, they were back in Tite Street, in the room behind the shop, beef stew and dumplings simmering on the stove, Hettie peering into the mirror above the mantelpiece, tweaking curls on to her forehead. Before the sense of intimacy could be lost, he went and sat on the end of her bed, and she shifted a little to make room for him. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just seen,’ he said in the same gossipy tone, and lifted an imaginary smock above his head.
Her face lit up with amusement. ‘Mad Mary,’ she said. ‘Eeh, dear me, everybody sees
that, chaplain, governor. I says, “Put it away, Mary, it’s going bald.” But you can’t reason with her, she’s away to the woods is that one, but you’d be surprised how many are. There’s women in here should never’ve been sent to prison. They need help. Hey, and we’ve had a countess; an Irish rebel, I met her in the yard. She says, “You’re the woman who tried to kill Lloyd George. Let me shake your hand.” I says, “Well, it’s very kind of you, love, but I didn’t.”’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘’Course I bloody didn’t.’ She stared at him. ‘Did I try to kill Lloyd George by sticking a curare-tipped blowdart in his arse? No. I. did. not. Now if you’re asking, “Suppose you had a curare-tipped blowdart and Lloyd George’s arse was just here, would you stick it in?” ‘course I bloody would, because there’ll be no peace while that bugger’s in power.’
Prior shook his head. ‘You can’t fasten it on to one person like that.’
‘Can’t you? I can.’
‘I don’t see how you can derive that from a Marxist analysis.’
‘Bugger Marxist analysis, I hate the sod.’
He waited. ‘Enough to kill him?’
‘Yes, enough to kill him! And I wouldn’t feel guilty about it either. Any more than he feels guilty about the millions and millions of young lives he’s chucked away.’ She fell back, her mouth working. ‘I’m not your milk-and-water, creeping Jesus sort of pacifist.’
‘It might’ve been better if you hadn’t said all that in court.’
‘I told the truth in court. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ She laughed. ‘Bloody fatal, that was. Do you know, Billy, I’ve seen the time I could con anybody into anything, when I was a young woman. Now they ask me a simple question and the truth pours out.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s mixing with bloody Quakers, that’s what’s done it. Good Christian company’s been the ruin of me.’