Prisoner's Base

by Celia Fremlin

  Margaret disapproved of the dream. Her disapproval grew and grew until it could only be described as anger—fury, even. How dared Mavis drag the chickens into her disgusting dreams! The happy, innocent chickens, scratching and pecking out here in the sunshine! The intensity, and the unreasonableness, of her resentment quite took Margaret herself by surprise. She should have been laughing at it—pooh-pooh-ing the whole thing. Just a silly woman’s silly dream!

  But somehow it wasn’t quite a laughing matter. There are certain dreams that can spread out beyond the dreamer, in ever-widening circles. Margaret felt the first chill ripple even now, lapping against her mind.

  “Get up, Mavis!” she snapped, trying to allay by bad temper this queasy flicker of foreboding. “Come along and help me with this corner. Just hold it tight, don’t let it move, while I push from the other side…” and as she tugged and wrenched, and scolded her assistant, she felt that she was fighting off more than just Mavis’ nightmare. Claudia’s schemes for selling the field: the compulsory purchase order: the mysterious invasion of the chicken-run last night: they all seemed to be connected now with Mavis’ dream, separate facets of a single, overpowering threat. Together they were gathering strength, converging on her from every side … Margaret fought and struggled with the recalcitrant wood like one contending with the powers of darkness.

  “There!” A final twist and a wrench, and the floor was suddenly free: it could be slid, straight and smooth, back into position. Margaret felt jubilant out of all proportion to the achievement—and so, it appeared, did Mavis, just as though their success had owed anything to her incompetent rumblings.

  Margaret did not disillusion her; she was only thankful that Mavis should so quickly have shaken off her morbid fancies. Now everyone else would be able to forget them too.

  It was disconcerting, then, that the moment they reached the house, Mavis should start all over again about the dream. “Claudia!” she cried, looking first in one room and then in another “Claudia!—Oh, there you are! Listen, Claudia; you must listen! I’ve had one of my prophetic dreams!”

  CHAPTER XXI

  IT WAS ALL nonsense, of course. Between them they soon made Mavis see that there was nothing prophetic about either this dream or the previous ones. This one had probably been triggered off by the frightened cackling which must have come from the hens when their house was invaded during the night—Mavis’ room looked out on that side of the house, and the only wonder was that the whole thing hadn’t actually wakened her, as well as giving her nightmares. The fact that the chickens had made similar noises again when she fell down in the run this afternoon could hardly rate even as a coincidence, let alone as anything supernatural. Similarly with the dream of Maurice sitting alone in the dark. Why, at his very first visit he had mentioned his habit of writing poetry late at night; no doubt the vision of him actually doing so had lodged itself in Mavis’ imagination, already over-sensitive on the subject of him and his doings.

  For once, Claudia seemed to be backing up her mother’s common-sense point of view; so much so that Margaret, gratified though she was by this unwonted support, began to feel quite sorry for Mavis. Here she was, dreaming wonderful psychological dreams chock-full of all Claudia’s favourite symbols; she was all worked up for a lovely nervy scene about her complexes and her repressed incest-fantasies, and now the whole thing was foundering on Claudia’s extraordinary unconcern. Well, yes, agreed Claudia tepidly, the stilts in the dream might very well have been a phallic symbol—well, all right, two phallic symbols, then. And yes, the meaningless cackling might have represented the confusion of Mavis’ own feelings, her love-hate attitude towards Maurice. And the toy-like landscape no doubt could have represented an inverted infantile omnipotence drive, why not?

  Why not indeed? Poor Mavis was like a little girl repeating her homework, conscientiously learned in hopes of pleasing a favourite teacher; and still the teacher remains preoccupied and inattentive. In a minute, of course, the little girl will start behaving badly, compelling attention.

  Was it this that made Mavis suddenly clutch at her throat in mid-cliché? The well-learned jargon rose without warning into a scream, “… involvement!” she shrieked. “He’s coming! I can hear him coming!—” and clapping her hand to her mouth as if only thus could she control her screams, she leaped from her chair and rushed out of the room. They could hear her thundering up the stairs, still in Helen’s Wellington boots, and then the door of her bedroom slammed.

  If the object of this exercise was to make Claudia race after her full of concern and grandiose psychological condolences, it failed grievously, for at this very moment a roguish tap-tap-tapping began on the open french window, and there stood Daphne, waiting coyly to be invited in across the imaginary barrier. No doubt it had been the sound of her footsteps approaching across the gravel that had roused Mavis to her mysterious flight.

  Ostensibly, Daphne had called on them for their signatures to a petition about later closing hours at the local library; but it soon became clear that what she and Claudia really wanted to do was to compare their latest scores.

  In a way, of course, Claudia was permanently in the lead because of having Maurice staying here; but Daphne was often able, by diligent burrowing round the neighbourhood, and unremitting attentiveness, to shorten this lead by some small fact or item of speculation. Today, for instance, she was all set to score ten points at least with some complicated but apparently not unconvincing piece of evidence that Maurice couldn’t possibly have been involved in that bank robbery in Hadley High Street. Something to do with the sister of the woman who ran the Mental Health Flag day—Margaret couldn’t really quite follow it, because she hadn’t kept up properly with the earlier instalments—but the evidence, whatever it was, must have been fairly strong, for here was Claudia giving her little laugh. Poor Daphne.

  Claudia made short work of it all, naturally. She pointed out that (a) Maurice had never said, in so many words, that this was the robbery he was involved in: (b) that he, Maurice, must surely know better what he had been put in prison for than Daphne’s Mental Health organiser’s sister: (c) that Mental Health should be a charge on the N.H.S. anyway, instead of all this nonsense with flags, and then all these muddle-headed women might find something better to do with their time than indulging in misleading chatter.

  Thus utterly routed, Daphne surrendered her points and slunk meekly back to base, listening, with apparent submissiveness, while Claudia brandished her own latest triumph. She, Claudia, had this very day written to a literary agent about Maurice’s poems.

  “I’ve made no secret of the position,” she declared proudly. “If anything, I’ve emphasised the fact of Maurice’s spell in prison! I want them to know that I’m not afraid of befriending such a young man—on the contrary, I’m proud to do so—”

  “And of course it should be a good selling gimmick,” Daphne agreed demurely; and Margaret could not help wondering if she was as innocently surprised as she seemed at Claudia’s quick frown.

  “I don’t see that. I don’t know what you mean,” said Claudia repressively. “There’s no ‘gimmick’ as you call it about Maurice’s poems. They’re marvellous—the real thing; and if, when he’s famous, I can feel that I’ve had some tiny part in bringing his name before the world, when everyone else was crushing him underfoot—”

  “And television, too,” Daphne prattled on with smiling obtuseness—or was it cunning equal to Claudia’s own?—“They’ll absolutely lap it up on television, especially with his hair so short and stubbly. It’s lucky he’s kept it like that. He could pretend he only came out yesterday…. Listen, I’ve got a cousin who knows a woman who once used to work in the drama department. If I was to give a little party, and have Maurice to meet them …”

  The battle was hotting up; the stakes were being raised. Margaret felt as superfluous as if she had wandered with her deckchair on to the centre court at Wimbledon. Hastily gathering her belongings together, she removed herself
, almost ducking her head as she crossed the room, and escaped into the hall.

  As she walked upstairs, it occurred to her to wonder how Mavis was faring. Had she realised by now that it was only Daphne, and not the dreaded Maurice, whom she had heard approaching the house? Or was she still shaking with idiotic terror behind her closed door? Thinking to put her out of her misery, Margaret crossed the landing to the silly girl’s room, and knocked.

  “Mavis?” she called, quite kindly. “Mavis, are you there?”

  No answer. Margaret called again. She felt certain that Mavis was within. Why, then, was she not answering? Was she too frightened? Or was she holding out, sulking, waiting for Claudia to come and make a fuss of her? That was just the sort of silly, spoilt-child behaviour that one might expect.

  Yet Margaret could not feel at ease. What was the girl doing in there? Once more she knocked, and when there was still no reply, she gently turned the handle and went in.

  Mavis seemed to be asleep. Wrapped in the eternal dressing-gown, and with the eiderdown pulled half over her, she lay on the bed, quite motionless. Only as Margaret approached the bed, and leaned over to see if she was truly asleep, her eyes opened.

  But she still did not move, nor did any sort of expression cross her face; just her eyes, round and wide open, stared into Margaret’s quite blank, as if she saw nothing.

  Margaret was somehow afraid.

  “Mavis!” she said, low and uneasy; “Mavis, say something! Wake up! Are you asleep? Mavis! Please!”

  A flicker of consciousness came into the blank eyes. Mavis blinked, gasped, and with a great sobbing sigh, she lurched up from her pillow and clutched Margaret’s arm.

  “Oh! Oh, Mrs. Newman, how could you! Oh, how could you frighten me so—! It’s wicked—cruel—to do a thing like that!”

  “My dear Mavis! My dear good girl, what do you mean? How did I frighten you? I’ve only come to see if you are all right?”

  “Why can’t you speak to me? Why are you cackling like that …?”

  Margaret took her by the shoulders and shook her.

  “Mavis! Wake up! You’re dreaming! Wake up …!”

  Her voice was sharp with fear, and now Mavis did wake up; woke properly, and with eyes suddenly fully conscious she stared, contrite and bewildered, into Margaret’s face.

  “Oh, Mrs Newman, it’s you! Oh, thank goodness, I thought … I must have been dreaming! Have I been asleep? Was I asleep when you came in?”

  “Indeed you were. Asleep and dreaming, and talking dreadful nonsense in your sleep, too. And I’m not surprised, suddenly going to bed in the middle of the afternoon like this! What’s the matter, are you ill?”

  “It’s not the middle of the afternoon,” said Mavis argumentatively. “It’s—” she looked at her little bedside clock—“It’s nearly seven. I’m having an early night, that’s all. I hardly slept at all last night, really I didn’t so I’ve taken two of my sleeping pills. But they never worked, Mrs. Newman, they just made me feel ever so dizzy—I still do, and yet I’m as wide awake as can be! Two of them, too, I usually take only just the one.”

  “Well, it serves you right! You’ve been a very silly girl. How can you expect to sleep at such a ridiculous hour, and with the sun shining and all—it’s no wonder the pills just give you nightmares instead! I expect that’s why you’ve been having all these nightmares lately, if you’re in the habit of drugging yourself.”

  “Oh, but I’m not, Mrs Newman! I haven’t taken one for ever so long, not since that first night after Eddie went to school, and I was so worried if they were doing things to him like in Tom Brown’s Schooldays. But then after I’d sent him the cake and the 10s. I felt better—I mean, he wouldn’t be writing asking for that sort of thing, would he, if they were roasting him in front of a slow fire?”

  Margaret agreed that he would not. “And if you’ve managed without your pills all this time,” she added, “it seems a pity to start the habit again now. There can’t be the least necessity. All that’s the matter with you, Mavis, is you haven’t enough to do. If you would only lead a regular, busy life like anybody else, getting up at a proper time, and going to bed when everyone else does—”

  “You mean I should get a job?” snapped Mavis suspiciously. “But I’m going to! Of course I’m going to. When I’m settled, and have had time to look round….”

  Familiar phrases. All the Poor Things were going to get jobs on that great day when they were Settled, and had had Time to Look Round. Margaret sighed.

  “Well, anyway, I should get up and come downstairs now,” she began—and then she suddenly noticed that Mavis was crying. Great, wet tears were trickling down her cheeks on to the counterpane, with the corner of which—to Margaret’s immense disapproval—she was dabbing at her eyes.

  “They don’t work!” she sobbed. “Oh, I can’t bear it! I’ve kept them by me all this time thinking to myself, if the dreams get too bad, I’ll take one of those, and get a proper night. It’s been such a support, thinking that! But they make the dreams worse, not better! Just now, it was as if I wasn’t asleep at all, and yet I couldn’t wake up. I heard you come into the room, Mrs Newman, I saw you, and still I couldn’t wake up. I thought you had a beak, that’s the only way I knew I was dreaming! Oh, Mrs Newman, I’m so frightened! And I can’t even lock the door, because the key’s gone! Next time it will be someone else—not you—coming in, and I shall see them, and I still won’t be able to wake up …!”

  Mavis’ hysterical crying seemed as if it would never end. Margaret felt at a loss, and rather scared.

  “Shall I fetch Claudia?” she suggested at last; and to her relief Mavis looked up, alert at once through her tears.

  “Oh! But only if she wants to, Mrs Newman. I wouldn’t dream of bothering her if she’d sooner be with Maurice, doing his typing for him! I’m sure that typing stuff must be much more interesting than my poor little problems!”

  Jealous as a toddler! But all the same, there was something disquieting about Mavis’ condition. Now, if ever, there was real need for Claudia’s much vaunted sympathy and understanding.

  “Oh dear!” Claudia smiled ruefully across at Daphne, who, rather to Margaret’s annoyance, was still here; she would have preferred to have described Mavis’ unhappy state to her daughter in private. “Oh dear. Well, I suppose I’ll have to go up to her. Of course I will. But it is rather—wearing—isn’t it, just when Maurice’s affairs are coming to a head, his poems and everything—I wanted to have all my energies available for him. And now Mavis has to relapse on me! However …” She moved towards the door in rueful triumph, gloriously burdened by all these demands on her patience and understanding; and under Daphne’s very nose, too. It was a splendid moment, not to be hurried over. At the door she paused.

  “Do you know what I feel like sometimes? I feel that I’m playing that game—Prisoner’s Base—where ‘He’ keeps catching people and putting them in prison, and the surviving, uncaught ones have to try to rescue them. I feel that I am for ever the uncaught one, forever rescuing the people that Life has captured and imprisoned. I rescue them—I set them free—and then all that happens is that they let Life catch them again, and I have to start all over again rescuing them! Not that I grudge it. I feel it’s the least I can do, since I am somehow lucky enough to have the strength, the understanding—”

  “And the insensitivity!” interrupted Margaret with a savagery that surprised even herself. “You’re right, Claudia, you are playing a game! But you’re playing it with other people’s real lives. Can’t you understand that, for them, it’s not a game? It’s real sufferings, Claudia, that you collect around you like toys on a nursery floor, to pick up and lay down when you feel inclined! At this very moment, you aren’t caring a damn what Mavis is feeling like up there—you’re only wondering how her sufferings, whatever they may be, will fit into your display. You’re wondering if they’ll tone well or badly with the Maurice-display that you’re concentrating on at the moment, trying to outsh
ine Daphne. You’re like two children in a nursery—”

  “Mother!” Claudia laughed her little laugh. “Surely we don’t talk like that about guests in our home, do we?” And then, turning to Daphne, she added: “Don’t pay any attention—Mother gets like this now and then. It’s her age”—the last three words were mouthed ostentatiously, in soundless provocation. Margaret rounded on her daughter with spirit.

  “It is not my age, Claudia, as you well know. You’re nearer to that age than I am now, so you’d better be a bit careful how you use that particular weapon in future! I’m sorry, Daphne, I didn’t mean to be rude, but, once and for all, I am going to speak my mind. It has gone too far, all this nonsense. You’re doing terrible harm, Claudia. I don’t know yet what it is that is going to happen, but I can see it building up, and I’m getting frightened. Why is Mavis like this?—why is she having these dreams? Yes, I know she’s always been silly and hysterical, but she’s getting worse. Why is she so afraid? What is it—what is going on? And Maurice too—he’s getting odder and odder every day. He seemed fairly ordinary when he first came. I don’t know what it is you are doing to them—and you don’t either: that’s the terrifying thing. You have taken over their lives as if you were God Almighty, and now you’re out of your depth—you don’t know what you’re doing. You have unleashed something, and you don’t know what it is: something has been set in motion which you don’t know how to stop. And when the crash comes—‘However did that happen?’ you will say: and ‘If only I had been there!’ You will think the catastrophe has happened in spite of your efforts; but you will be wrong; it will have happened because of them. It will have happened because of the way you treat people like toys, setting them up for your amusement in situations which they can’t sustain. It’s no wonder that Mavis is having nightmares about a world of toys! It’s you she’s dreaming of, Claudia, not Maurice at all! Balanced up on those stilts, larger than life, and administering a toy kingdom …! Don’t you understand, Claudia, these people you gather round you are weak people, all of them. They can’t survive the sort of games you play, knocking them around the nursery floor. They get broken!”