The proposal to elect Mr Alex Markby chair was carried nem. con. There being no further business, the ED declared the special meeting closed and tea was served early at 3.30 p.m.
34
Time passed in Holloway, where the days were all the same: get up, breakfast, laundry, dinner, more work, association and locked up for the night. Martine was getting nearer to having her baby and I began to tell the passing of time by the progress of her pregnancy. Otherwise, we were killing time waiting for the days to pass, in my case until the date of my trial, when I expected to find out how much more time I would have to kill.
When Terry came a few more times to visit, he looked at me sadly as though I hadn’t done what I did to be close to him, and now I felt he was getting further and further away from me. Finally we didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. All he wanted to talk about was how well he got on with Mr Markby, his probation officer, now chairman of SCRAP since that Chippy McGrath had done a runner.
He told me that he’d threatened to expose Chippy unless he admitted he’d forced me to steal the picture. That was why Chippy left the country. I told him it was a daft idea anyway and no one forced me to steal the picture, which had been entirely my Great Idea. After that we found even less to say to each other.
Persephone Smith-Aldeney visited me from Aldershot and showed me one of the tabloids with a huge article by Robin Thirkell under the screaming headline ‘Bishop’s Daughter Invaded My Home Because I’d Ended Our Torrid Love Affair’. She said the tabloid in question was delighted with Robin’s article, so they’d offered him a weekly restaurant column and ‘good money’.
I thought at least someone had profited from this mess, although it did seem that some tabloids would believe anything.
So the days passed, working in the laundry, waiting for Martine’s baby and having Miss Wickstead, the screw, watching my every movement, hoping that I might get ‘prison bent’ in her direction. Then they told me I had another visitor and, surprise, surprise, who should I find sitting at the table in the visitors’ centre but my usually not very talkative mother.
Sylvia had scrubbed up for the occasion. Her hair looked as though it had been done specially and she’d brought me a box of chocolates, in the way she did when she visited me at school.
‘What an extraordinary place!’ She looked round at the tables where girls were meeting their husbands or boyfriends and bored children were longing for the visits to end.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s very extraordinary.’
‘I’ve never been in a prison before.’ Strangely enough, Sylvia looked as though she regretted it.
‘No, Mum, I don’t suppose you have.’
‘It’s a new experience for you too, is it, Lucy?’ My mother seemed to have only the vaguest idea of what I’d been doing since I left home.
‘Yes, Mum. A completely new experience.’
‘And it’s not too bad in here?’
‘No, it’s not too bad. A bit better than St Swithin’s. At least we have a heated swimming pool. Oh, and a ghost.’
‘What ghost?’
‘Ruth Ellis. They hung her because she shot her lover.’
‘Oh, I remember. They shouldn’t have done that.’ My mother looked vaguely into the middle distance.
‘No, they shouldn’t.’
‘Have you ever seen this ghost?’
‘Once or twice I thought I saw her, yes.’
‘Well, let’s hope you did.’
‘Why?’
‘Not much point in being a ghost if nobody sees you.’ My mother giggled as though she had said something extremely funny. I wondered how long it was since we last sat down to have a talk to each other.
‘You know I met your father in Ronnie Scott’s?’
‘Yes, Mum. I did know.’
Whenever Dad was writing a sermon the palace still echoed to Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker, Sidney Bechet and Muddy Waters. I knew he’d met Mum at a jazz club.
‘When I took him home my parents were so pleased because they’d found out he was a vicar with bishop potential. I only liked him because I found him sexually attractive.’
This was wonderful. The prison atmosphere was clearly bringing the best out in my mother. I had never thought that we would have this conversation.
‘So you had a great sex life, did you, Mum?’ This question, which I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking my mother before this prison visit, didn’t seem to worry her at all.
‘Oh yes. Two or three times a night. Even more some Sundays! When he was a vicar. That was when you were conceived and all that sort of thing. It was when he was a bishop that the trouble started. I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you all this.’
‘What was the trouble then, Mum?’ She really didn’t seem to mind telling me.
‘God.’
I looked round the room. Children were bored, eating sweets from the prison shop. Couples could no longer think of anything to say to each other. The screws were looking on and Mum was unexpectedly pouring out her heart.
‘How did God come into it?’
‘Well, he didn’t really. Not when Robert was a vicar. In those days he seemed to take God for granted. But as soon as he became a bishop - I don’t know, I suppose because it was a step up and Robert felt responsible for God and treated him more as an equal. Anyway, he began to find fault with him or question anything he did. Of course, it’s got a lot worse since President Bush. He can’t understand how God would have anything to do with the man.’
‘But how did this affect you?’ I knew a lot about Robert’s troubles, but now my mum was opening her heart to me.
‘Well, he seemed to think much more about God than he did about me. And then he got so keen on gay and lesbian marriages.’
‘You think that was a bad thing?’
‘Not in itself. I mean, I don’t give tuppence for what they do among themselves. It’s their world and they’re welcome to it. But Robert seemed so interested in their sex lives that he forgot all about ours.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I. And I’m afraid there’s even worse news ahead. Will London’s about to retire. He’s got something wrong with his brain. Robert’s been strongly recommended as his successor.’
‘Bishop of London?’
‘Of course the idea’s ridiculous, but Robert’s enormously excited about it. It’ll be very controversial and there are already letters against him in the Daily Telegraph. Robert likes that, having letters against him in the Daily Telegraph.’
‘Well, who’s for him then?’
‘The Prime Minister apparently thinks he’s a “modernizer” who’s prepared to draw a line under the old conservative Church of England. Oh, I do so hope it never happens.’
‘Why, exactly?’
‘I’ve got used to the palace at Aldershot. I know the stairs. I love the peculiar little scullery. I don’t want to go to London, Lucy. I prayed to God it doesn’t happen.’
‘Well then . . .’
‘But I’m not sure he was listening. I’m not sure he listens to people’s prayers any more. Perhaps he’s had enough of it by now. All the same, Lucy, what I can say to you is, don’t ever marry a man with bishop potential.’
‘Don’t worry. My boyfriend’s a burglar.’
‘I know, dear. Your father told me.’
‘Even though he may be my ex-boyfriend now.’
‘Don’t worry, Lucy. You’re not to worry. You’ve done something with your life.’
‘Have I?’
‘You’ve had an extraordinary experience. I never had an extraordinary experience and I don’t suppose I ever shall.’
Then it was time for her to go. When we stood up I put my arms round her and told her that I loved her. She left me then, smiling sweetly to herself.
The visit from my mother went well, but the same couldn’t be said of my visits from Terry. He had told me about Chippy vanishing from the scene to an unknown address somewhere in the world.
He reported that the maisonette was empty and up for sale, the awful secretary had gone off, presumably with Chippy, and Screwtop and Ozzy Desmond were nowhere to be found. He kept telling me he was going straight and divided his time between chatting up his probation officer and helping out in various restaurants. He also said that I shouldn’t get too close to the girls in my room as they were probably all reoffenders and I might end up by being as bad as them.
This attitude of Terry’s to my girl friends got under my skin more than a bit, particularly as the great excitement for all of us was the arrival of Martine’s baby. I told him I thought it would be better if he didn’t visit me any more, at least until I could get my head straight. He seemed quite startled when I told him that, but he just muttered, ‘OK then,’ and left the visitors’ room. I didn’t see him after that, not for a long time.
Martine had been moved into the mother and baby unit in a four-bedded room with three other mothers-to-be. Then we heard that she’d been moved to the labour ward of the Whittington Hospital, where she could stay for no more than seventy-two hours. But that was long enough to produce what she came back with. We got passes to see him and of course everyone agreed with Martine that he was just the most marvellous baby that had ever been born in the world. His name was Nicholas, but she called him Nick - which I thought was an appropriate name if he grew up pinching things like his mother. But of course I never said that.
Martine was now in a single room with Nick. She wasn’t locked up at night, but she couldn’t leave the room without permission. So we marked the passage of time by Nick’s various achievements. We remembered the first day he smiled, when he started on solid food, when he sat up and we had a big day of celebration when he crawled.
Behind all these achievements, though, there was a horrible worry for Martine. Each step forward brought Nick nearer to being nine months old, when he and his mother would have to be parted. And if Martine had no home to send him to, he would be put into care and it would be goodbye to Nicholas.
Well, she hadn’t got a home. Martine’s mother was a crack-head who’d only left Holloway a month or so before we arrived. Of course she had friends, but they were a drifting population of airheads and regular offenders. There seemed to be no one to look after Nick until Martine finished her sentence. I have to say that this worried me more than thoughts of my coming appearance at the Old Bailey.
Of course I got another visit from Peter Bethell, who brought with him a youngish, tallish and enthusiastic man who seemed to find everything he said himself irresistibly funny, although I noticed he never laughed when Mr Bethell made anything at all like a joke.
‘We’ve briefed Mr Frobisher for your case, Lucy,’ Mr Bethell told me. ‘I used him the other day in the Court of Appeal.’
‘I managed to tie them up in knots on the quality of criminal intent.’ Mr Frobisher laughed heartily.
‘So you did, Mr Frobisher. You had the Lords Justice of the Court of Appeal “appealing” for mercy.’ Mr Bethell, certainly in a good mood, laughed loudly, but Mr Frobisher didn’t crack a smile.
‘We thought a brilliant young junior was better than a QC in your particular case,’ Mr Bethell said. ‘And we didn’t want to put the bishop to unnecessary expense.’
‘I don’t want my father put to any expense at all.’
‘Mr George Frobisher,’ Peter Bethell assured me, ‘can see further through a brick wall than most of us. He says it’s not too late.’
‘Too late for what?’ I asked them.
‘For you to say it was all a joke on your old friend Robin Thirkell.’
‘Just a bit of a prank.’ Mr Frobisher seemed overcome by laughter. ‘We’ll get a judge with a sense of humour. They do exist, you know.’
‘Mr Frobisher knows his judges,’ Peter Bethell assured me.
‘We want the sort of chap who was capable of sewing up his best friend’s trouser legs, or putting a ferret in his bed in college days.’
Mr Bethell smiled vaguely. I was sure he didn’t know of any judge who’d put a ferret in his best friend’s bed at any time of his life. Honestly, I needed to put an end to this nonsense. ‘It wasn’t a joke,’ I said, ‘or a prank and I didn’t sew up anyone’s trousers. It was deadly serious.’
‘I told you.’ Peter Bethell turned to the barrister sadly. ‘It was deadly serious. She was deeply in love at the time.’
‘I can’t see why being deeply in love should make you go around stealing people’s artworks.’ Saying this made Mr Frobisher laugh again and Peter Bethell joined in obediently.
‘Then you can’t understand my case at all,’ I told them. ‘I’m just going to say I’m guilty and go back to prison. Oh, perhaps now you’re both here you could think of a legal way of stopping Martine having her child taken away from her when he’s nine months old.’
But they couldn’t. They weren’t any use at all. Either of them.
35
Time passed. I’d stopped visiting Holloway, quite honestly because Lucy didn’t want to see me again. Talk about attitude! Hers seemed to have changed from love, real proper love, to what you might call irritation. Just because I wanted to be what she once wanted me to be. Now she was angry because I wanted the odd GCSE or A level or to go straight.
Of course I’d had girlfriends before, plenty of them, and I had no trouble at all understanding what they wanted. A good time, of course, plenty of drinks and the occasional illegal substance, and if you’re suddenly flush with money a couple of weeks on the Costa del Crime. I’d been happy to oblige and the truth is that I’d never been given the push before. It may be a bit arrogant of me to say this but it always either fizzled out or I was the one who decided we weren’t best suited.
It was different with Lucy. Come to think of it, everything was different with Lucy. If I was to be honest about it I’d have to admit that it was because I cared for her more than I’d ever cared for any of the others. So I suppose that’s why I felt so badly about it. If she didn’t fancy me any more, for whatever reason, I wasn’t going to turn up in the Holloway visitors’ room just for the pleasure of discovering that my girlfriend had got bored with me and couldn’t wait for the visit to be over.
As she’d ended our relationship I thought it wasn’t fair to stay on in her flat in the Notting Hill area, so I locked it up and moved away. I’ll admit I borrowed some of her books I needed for studying. I found myself a room above a Japanese restaurant down the Goldhawk Road. Never mind I had to share a bathroom with the head sushi cook. He was spotlessly clean and would send me up a few bits of sushi when he thought I looked hungry. It was a long way from cooking up a rack of lamb for Lucy in her flat, but let’s say I survived on it and it was a lot better than being locked up inside like she was.
I went over to the Brummell Club in the days when I still had a bit of money stored up against my retirement and one night there, drinking at the bar as large as life and twice as natural, was Screwtop. I sat down beside him, allowed him to order me a large vodka on the rocks and then I accused him of leading the scam which was so stupidly organized that it had landed my ex-girlfriend inside.
‘She hasn’t told you that, has she?’ Screwtop looked seriously worried.
‘No.’ I did my best to reassure him, although to be honest he wasn’t wanting reassuring. ‘She hasn’t told anyone. When I found out she was with a couple of pros who left her in her hour of need, I thought one of them must have been you.’
‘She’s a good girl.’ Screwtop looked horribly self-satisfied.
‘She’s not a good girl,’ I told him. ‘And that’s why she’s in Holloway Prison.’
‘And what about you?’ Screwtop wasn’t worried about Lucy now he’d found out she wasn’t going to shop him. ‘You done any good jobs lately?’
‘Helped out in the kitchens of Il Deliciosa in Westbourne Terrace.’
‘You mean you’re going legitimate?’
‘That’s what I mean.’
‘That can’t be very profi
table.’
‘No, it isn’t. But it gives me time to study. I hope to get a few more qualifications. What about you?’
‘Been abroad.’ Screwtop picked up his glass and looked very pleased with himself. ‘Came back to clear up a few things and then I’ll be away again.’
‘Like Chippy?’ it occurred to me to ask him.
‘Yes. Very like Chippy.’ Screwtop gulped down his drink and said, ‘We may be working together again. Somewhere you can make money by the bucketful.’
‘Oh yes?’ I tried not to sound too interested. ‘Where’s that exactly?’
Screwtop wouldn’t have told me so much if he’d been entirely sober. As it was he leaned forward and, with his vodka breath, whispered one word in my ear: ‘Iraq.’
Screwtop left the Brummell then and I never saw or spoke to him or Chippy again.
Like I say, time passed. Thanks to Mr Markby I got lessons through the post. It wasn’t the Milton book I had to read but one about animals talking about politics and one from America about a halfwitted man. I wrote down my thoughts about these books and posted them off, and got quite encouraging letters back. When it came to Christmas, Mr Markby invited me to lunch at his home in Enfield.
So I sat round a table with Mr and Mrs Markby and her sister and her sister’s husband and one or two more friends and someone who worked in the Prison Inspectors Office and we all put on paper crowns out of the crackers and Mr Markby read out the jokes, which as far as I was concerned didn’t raise a laugh at all. I was mainly worried about Mr Markby’s little dog, who seemed dead set on eating the ends of my trousers. Mr Markby told them all that we’d first met when I was in prison and they looked at me, particularly the young Markby, Simon, with a sort of respect as though he’d told them that I’d swum the Channel or crossed the Arctic with dogs.
After a few glasses of port and a few more crackers, Mr Markby told them all how he’d delayed my parole.
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