Border Crossing

by Pat Barker

  Outside the bar, they kissed goodnight and he set off to walk home, hoping that the combination of fresh air, exercise and far too much to drink would enable him to get to sleep.

  The nights were bad. He found himself regularly standing at the window, at two or three or four a.m., staring up and down the street. Once he thought he’d identified a fellow insomniac. A bedroom light, nine or ten doors down, kept going on and off, and he took some comfort from the presence of a fellow sufferer. Over the following nights he identified a pattern and realized the light was coming from a lamp wired up to a timing device. He felt the loss of this unknown companion as a distinct twinge of pain, and wondered that anything so trivial could make itself felt amidst the general misery.

  Tonight, though, he fell into a deep sleep and woke refreshed. He lay and watched sunlight creeping over the carpet towards the bed. And this morning, instead of forcing himself upstairs to his attic workroom, as he did every day, he was driving to Long Garth.

  Somewhere inside his head, Martha’s voice said, ‘You’re free now.’

  As he went down to breakfast, he thought about it. Being free didn’t stop the pain, or the bewilderment, or the sense of failure, but it was a new and equally valid perspective on his situation, and it demanded attention.

  THIRTEEN

  Long Garth, the secure unit where Danny had spent seven years of his life – what was left of his childhood and all his adolescence – lay in a fold of green countryside beneath Brimham Rocks. Having arrived too early for his appointment, Tom drove up to see the rocks, huge granite boulders left strewn across the moorside as the last Ice Age retreated, some grouped together, some isolated. One block of granite was so finely balanced on top of another that it swayed in the slightest breeze.

  Tom watched the moving rock, then looked down over the moorside, listening to the distant bleats of sheep that came and went as random as wind chimes. He could see Long Garth from here, a low building surrounded by playing fields, with the blue oblong of a swimming pool set a little to one side. Once Long Garth had been part of a much larger institution for adolescents in trouble with the law, but that had been closed down. Fashions change: the extreme isolation of the setting was now thought unsuitable for the rehabilitation of young offenders, but the secure unit remained. Twenty-four adolescents – all boys -behind a sixteen-foot-high perimeter fence.

  Tom had never met Bernard Greene before. He’d written to the Home Office three times, in the first year after Danny’s conviction, emphasizing how important it was that Danny should receive professional help rather than be subjected to mere containment, and each time he’d received the same bland reply. Danny had settled in well. Progress towards his eventual rehabilitation was being made. But Tom had heard from other sources that there was no provision for psychotherapy at Long Garth, and Danny confirmed this. Instead he’d received an eccentric, old-fashioned form of public-school education: large grounds, well-equipped classrooms, small classes, firm moral teaching, an emphasis on the role of games in the training of character. No wonder his father had approved.

  Cloud cuckoo land, Tom would have said. No relevance at all to the treatment of a severely disturbed child, except that Danny had flourished here, for a time at least.

  Bernard Greene lived outside the grounds, down a narrow lane that ran parallel with the perimeter fence. A wisteria covered the front of the house, its leaves rustling in the breeze. It had the effect of making the house seem alive, a sheltered space within the garden,but not separate from it. The leaves were beginning to turn. He couldn’t imagine what this place would be like in winter: bare moors, icy winds and, on the skyline, those precariously balanced rocks.

  The door was opened by a large woman, one hand still wearing a red-and-white-striped oven mitt. ‘Dr Seymour?’ she asked. ‘Come on in. My husband’s expecting you.’ She stood smiling at him, her face shining with perspiration or steam, a rather jolly, unathletic games mistress in a girls’ school.

  He stepped into the hall. A bowl of roses stood on the hall table, the silver reflected in the polished wood. Even the fallen petals, little pink and yellow gondolas, seemed to be part of the arrangement. Smells of lavender and lemon. Yet Mrs Greene had made no effort with her own appearance. A shapeless dress splodged with blue cabbage roses covered a body she’d clearly decided to forget about. Thin, grey-brown hair, clean and neatly combed, but not styled. She’d given up.

  She opened a door on the right. ‘Dr Seymour to see you, dear.’

  Bernard Greene was hovering just inside the. door, waiting to come forward and offer a cool, dry hand. Immediately Tom felt antagonistic. Why had he not got up and answered the door himself? Why leave his wife to come all the way from the kitchen, like a servant, when he was nearer? Greene’s whole appearance was elegant, self-contained, slightly boyish. Crisp grey curls, intensely blue eyes – so intense Tom suspected tinted contact lenses, though he couldn’t see the rim – sun-tanned skin, forthright manner, an erect almost military bearing. The contrast with his wife was startling. He looked about twenty years younger.

  Well, perhaps he was younger. Tom sat down in the chair indicated: a chintz-covered armchair at the opposite side of the fireplace from Greene. An elaborate arrangement of dried flowers hid the empty grate. On his left was a grand piano, covered with photographs of two young girls, in their school uniforms, on horseback, playing in the garden, giggling on the edge of a swimming pool.

  ‘My girls,’ Greene said, as if his wife had played no part in their production. ‘Away on a school trip at the moment, so the place seems very quiet. Do you have children?’

  ‘No,’ Tom said. He thought it an odd question to ask at the start of a professional interview, almost as if Greene were trying to undermine any claims to competence in dealing with adolescents Tom might be about to make. ‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.’

  ‘Not at all. Only too pleased to help, though I don’t know there’s much I can tell you. Are you treating him?’

  ‘Not exactly. He wants to… to talk to somebody about, well, about the past, what happened, why it happened. I don’t know whether you remember – I was called as an expert witness at the trial.’

  ‘So you know most of it already?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  Mrs Greene said, Tm surprised –’ then thought better of whatever it was she’d been going to say. ‘Would you like some tea?’

  Greene glanced at Tom.

  ‘I’d love some.’

  When she’d gone, Tom asked, ‘Has Danny been in touch since he left?’

  ‘No. He wrote once or twice, but that’s all.’

  ‘Did you expect him to? I mean, do they come back?’

  ‘Some. I thought Danny might.’

  ‘Why do you think he didn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know. If you’re seeing him, you could ask him.’ After a short silence, he went on, ‘I think he felt… let down. I’m afraid I did more or less promise he’d be allowed to serve his sentence here, at least until he’d turned nineteen. Because there was a precedent for that, you see. Another boy did that, and… He was actually released from here, but in Danny’s case the Home Office decided to transfer him to a top-security prison. So he left.’ A flash of bitterness. ‘And I’ve no doubt it took them six months to undo all the good we’d done in seven years.’

  ‘Can I start by going right back to the beginning? What was your first impression?’

  ‘We were gobsmacked,’ Mrs Greene said, coming back in with the tray. ‘Do you remember?’ she asked her husband.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘We were in the waiting room when the warder came in with him. He was so small. And then when we got him back here and saw him beside all the other boys –’

  ‘He was the youngest by three years,’ Greene said.

  ‘All you could do that night was put him to bed,’ Mrs Greene said. ‘He was totally worn out. Oh, and he was terrified of wetting the bed, and he wouldn’t let himself g
o to sleep, he. tried to stay awake, and of course he did wet it. He used to hate doing it. I think he hated anything he couldn’t control.’

  ‘My wife taught him French,’ Greene said.

  This was a dismissal and she took it as such. When the door closed behind her, Greene said, ‘Does he know you’re here?’

  ‘Yes. I wouldn’t come without his knowing, though having said that I shan’t be repeating anything you say.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Pretty good. I think it’s a hopeful sign that he wants to… come to terms with what happened.’

  An indulgent smile. ‘Come to terms? I wonder if that’s possible. What could it possibly mean to come to terms with the fact that you killed somebody?’

  ‘All right. He wants to set the record straight.’

  ‘You mean find somebody else to blame? It’s best left. You know the first thing I do with any boy*coming to this school? I say to him: this is the first day of the rest of your life. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t even want to know what you’ve done. All I’m interested in is the way you behave now. The moment you walk through that gate you start living forwards.’

  Greene positively glittered with conviction. For the first time Tom saw that this man might be charismatic, particularly if you were young and troubled and you wanted to forget.

  ‘So nobody ever spoke to Danny about the murder?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And he didn’t attempt to raise it?’

  ‘No. You’ve got to remember he was still saying he hadn’t done it. In Danny’s mind there was nothing to talk about.’

  ‘He’s mentioned an English teacher.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  A surprisingly sharp question. ‘Nothing much. Just that he was very good. Angus…?’

  ‘MacDonald. Yes, he was good. And very well meaning.’

  Tom smiled. ‘That’s generally said about people who create havoc’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that. He was… totally committed. Good degree, good references, but no experience, no… sense of danger, I was going to say, but that’s not the right word.’ Greene groped. ‘He ended up poddling about in things he wasn’t qualified to deal with.’

  ‘He got Danny writing about the murder?’

  ‘As I understood it, he asked him to write about his childhood. I don’t think even Angus would’ve –’

  ‘And you disapproved?’

  ‘I didn’t know. If I had, I’d certainly have warned Angus to steer clear.’

  ‘So how did you find out?’

  ‘Danny. He came to see me. Though I knew something was wrong before that, because his behaviour had deteriorated.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He attacked another boy.’

  ‘Badly?’

  Greene shrugged. ‘Depends on your standards. He tried to stab him with a screwdriver, but the boy wasn’t injured. As I’m sure you realize, assaults here are fairly frequent. But, of course, after that it all came out. By “all” I mean the sort of probing Angus had been doing.’

  Greene sat back, bright-eyed, nursing his teacup, waiting for the next question, giving nothing.

  ‘Was Danny a good swimmer?’

  Surprise. ‘Excellent. He used to swim for the school.’

  ‘Against?’

  ‘Other young offenders’ institutions.’

  ‘Was he allowed out?’

  ‘Under strict supervision, yes. As were the other two boys who were serving life sentences. There was never any preferential treatment.’

  Tom was left wondering why Greene supposed he thought it possible that there might have been. ‘But you’d have to make some sort of – I wouldn’t say preferential – special arrangements for his education, surely? I mean he was doing three A levels. What proportion of the boys here do that?’

  Greene smiled, ‘0.001 per cent. Yes, of course we made special arrangements, just as we would’ve done if a boy had been profoundly deaf, or blind, or… Fairness doesn’t mean you treat boys in exactly the same way. It means you devote equal attention to their needs.’

  Greene had been on the defensive ever since Tom had mentioned Angus MacDonald. ‘Was he rewarding to teach?’

  Greene’s expression… softened? No, not softened – kindled. ‘He was one of the brightest boys I’ve ever taught. I used to teach at Manchester Grammar School, and of course we got some very bright lads there. When I came here I told myself I didn’t miss it. Seeing these boys come on… it’s another sort of satisfaction. But for a teacher there’s nothing quite like feeding a mind that can take everything you give it, and come up asking for more. So yes, he was rewarding.’

  ‘Did all the staff like him?’

  The enthusiasm faded. ‘Of course not. We’re a small community. There are always going to be tensions in a place like this.’

  ‘Would you say the school succeeded with him?’

  ‘Yes, I would. I don’t know to what extent the experience of prison was destructive, but when he left here he was… Yes, well, I will say it. In many ways a fine young man.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘And now I’m afraid…’ His hands closed over the arms of his chair. ‘Oh, you haven’t finished your tea. No, don’t rush. My wife’ll see you out.’

  Tom shook hands, thanked him again, then walked across to the window and watched him go. A curious bustling, tripping walk, as if the movement came from the knee rather than the hip. He became aware that Mrs Greene had come into the room behind him, and was watching him watch her husband. He turned, and picked up the tray. ‘Shall I carry this?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you. Would you like another cup?’

  She was being jolly hockey sticks again, but the eyes were dark and shrewd.

  ‘Yes, I think I could manage another.’

  He followed her into the kitchen. It had a good feel to it, this room: dressers rather than fitted units, a minimum of modern gadgets, old, well-cared-for utensils lying around, a scarred chopping block, rows of sharp knives. A bunch of Michaelmas daisies in a square green-and-white vase stood on the central table. Tom sat down while she moved around filling the kettle and setting out clean mugs. ‘Can’t be doing with cups, can you? If it’s worth having at all, I always want a lot.’

  A pot simmered on the cooker. ‘I wish I could offer you a more appetizing smell, but I’m afraid it’s still at the scraping-off-scum stage.’

  She sat down, wrapped her pound-of-sausages fingers round the mug and blinked at him. ‘Well,’ she said, when he still didn’t speak. ‘Danny.’

  ‘You taught him French. Was he good?’

  She tubed her mouth. ‘Yeah. He was bright, good memory, good mimic. There’s not a lot else to learning a language at the early stages.’

  ‘How old was he when you. first started teaching him?’

  ‘Eleven. The same age he would have been if he’d’ – an unreadable flicker of expression – ‘followed a more normal path.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  An abrasive laugh. ‘Oh, that’s a dangerous question to ask round here. I didn’t ask myself if I liked him. That wasn’t the point.’

  ‘No, but you could ask yourself now.’

  ‘And come up with a straight yes or no?’

  He smiled. ‘Whatever you come up with I’d like to hear.’

  ‘Danny was a bottomless pit. He wanted other people to fill him, only in the process the other people ended up drained. Some people were… I don’t know, mesmerized by the process, and so they kept going back for more. Or rather they kept going back to give more.’

  ‘You say they were mesmerized by the process?’

  ‘Or by him. This place is full of people wanting to help, that’s why we’re here. And most of the time you can’t help, so when you meet somebody like Danny who makes you feel you are helping, well… it’s water in the desert. And he was very, very good at making people think they were helping.’

  ‘He was probably desperate to be helped.’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  Tom was feeling his way forward. ‘Do you think Mr Greene ended up drained?’

  ‘No.’ Very definite. ‘My husband is… well, devoted to the boys, as I’m sure you saw, but on the personal level he can be… quite impervious, as well.’

  Tom found himself trying to translate that into terms that might have been used by somebody less admiring (presumably she was admiring) of Greene and his work, but the only phrases he could come up with were swingeing.

  ‘Bernard has a great gift. He can look at somebody and see the best person they could be, and somehow he manages to believe that person into existence. But the downside is that he’s actually rather naive about the way people are now. He’s not shrewd. In fact, I think he rather despises shrewdness, he thinks it’s cynicism.’

  Tom was puzzled, and he took a moment to work out why. It was because he’d expected more resentment from this woman who was treated like a housemaid, expected to run and answer the door, sent off to make the tea, then dismissed, abruptly, although she’d taught Danny and might well have had something to contribute. But now, looking round the kitchen, he saw that this, not the study, was the power centre. Seen from this changed perspective, the study looked rather like a playpen.

  ‘And this suspension of disbelief worked with Danny?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Tom hesitated. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘They let him out.’

  He saw her smile. Tom didn’t want to make the same mistake he’d made with Greene, closing down the conversation by focusing on a topic that produced a defensive reaction, so he asked the most open-ended question he could think of. ‘What was it like dealing with him?’

  Silence: the silence of having too much to say. ‘I’m sure my husband told you he got no preferential treatment?’

  ‘He did, yes.’