A Sentence of Life

by Julian Gloag

  Then, suddenly, as if he had walked into a room where naked strangers were making love, blood and embarrassment filled his face. June was pregnant. June, the naked stranger, her belly filled with child. Under the dressing gown so close to him her white skin was taut and bulged—and he had known nothing, cared nothing, patronized her about America. He had not even tried.…

  “… the degree of moral turpitude in such a relationship is not for you to consider. Whatever the nature of that relationship, and you will hear …”

  The nature of the relationship! Jordan smiled, and, as in a glass held up before him, he saw his own smile bitterly reflected back. He did not care what they thought. Let them imagine him a nonchalant monster. They wouldn’t be so far wrong. Nonchalant, blithe, blind. Relationship! What idiocy was that? There had never been a relationship. He had been in another country from June—a country of complacency, of wry jokes and boredom and stale custom, of …

  “… What are we to make of this girl whose life was bounded on the one side by her job and on the other side by constant companionship with an invalid mother? An ordinary girl, you might say, except in her extraordinary sense of duty and devotion. A shy girl, perhaps—she had no friends or companions of her own age. And, therefore, a lonely girl. A sheltered girl—innocent perhaps of the ways of the world.” The monotonous voice took on a shade of emphasis. “Too innocent. There is not a particle of evidence to suggest that June Singer had or had ever had a boy friend…”

  … of innocence? No. He forced his mind back, as he had with Bartlett, but this time to search for a grain of nourishment, a single grain for himself. Surely in all those years there had been something, some one thing.

  Then he heard his own voice, speaking into the telephone: “Are you all right? … Is there anything wrong? … Oh, I see. Dear, dear, I am sorry.… Yes of course. Good lord, no. Well, on Monday then, if you feel up to it.… Uh, I’m sorry.… If there’s anything I can do to help, Miss Singer, just … Well. Goodbye.” And then, as he had put the phone down on the news of her mother’s death, he had said aloud, “What a nuisance.” Miss Singer—the cool retreat into formality. No—no retreat; he had not moved, he was exactly where he had always been. What a nuisance, Miss Singer, that your mother has died. Too bad. Tut-tut.

  “… Now why did Maddox not admit, in his first interview with the police, that he had visited Panton Place on the morning of the murder? Because, in his own words, ‘I clean forgot.’ That is how Maddox explained it. Yet it would take a rather singular lapse of memory, you may think, to forget—only two days after her death—the last time he had seen his secretary alive. An outstanding lapse of memory. Or a deliberate intention to deceive? For it was only after he had been positively identified by Mrs. Ardley, as you will hear, that Maddox miraculously recovered his memory.…”

  Not innocence. He had never wanted to know. But now he did. He must search and scrape. If only they would stop talking; the continuous thin drone, like a strand of electrified wire, prevented him from getting in, getting back. All those days with June, day after day, and the other times …

  “… moment to adjourn.… Resume at two o’clock.”

  “On your feet. Go on.”

  The judge was rising and immediately the place filled with talk and stirring.

  “Get a move on.”

  Down the steep steps, along the same corridor, into the same cell.

  “… or you can send out,” said the warder. Denver had disappeared. “Do a nice steak-and-kidney for seven and six.”

  Jordan sat down. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Pay in advance if you don’t mind.”

  “No, of course, really.” He gave the warder a ten-shilling note.

  Now he would be left in peace.

  But he wasn’t. As the warder went out, Samson, the hospital orderly, came in and sat down.

  “Hello, Maddox.”

  “Are you going to stay here?”

  “That’s right, Maddox.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s regulations, Maddox. Don’t want you to get any funny ideas like stringing yourself up with your braces. You’d be surprised how many of them try it. Mind if I smoke?”

  “No. Go ahead,” said Jordan irritably.

  “Not that you’re the suicidal type, mind, but …”

  Coming up in the police van this morning, Samson, unlike Denver, had not been affected by the sternness of the occasion. He had talked on and on, sprightly with lugubrious tales and sententious moralism.

  Jordan turned his head away. He had to think. But he needed time and solitude and green fields to think. June Emily Singer. June. The details of her life as the law presented them fell into no particular place. Like a bad portrait, where every point of dress and feature was exact, yet each remained separate, all you could conclude was, “She was an ordinary girl.”

  An ordinary girl. And he himself knew no more than this.

  Once he had asked Colin what his mother had been like. Colin had said, “You’ve seen your father’s portrait of her often enough. What do you think?” Well, Lily Maddox had been beautiful. “Yes, she was beautiful.” But Jordan had wanted more than the generalized ideal. He wanted to detect a trace of life. “She was very like John, as a matter of fact. You could always tell they were brother and sister. Strong attraction for the opposite sex, both of them.”

  And from Aunt Mary he had got even less. “Lily was the baby of the family.” After a time he had given up asking, for, although his mother was not exactly a taboo subject, Mary talked of her in a grief-hushed but aggressive tone, as if Jordan might be expected to nourish some grievance over his lack or might accuse Aunt Mary of the loss. So every Sunday when he was a child he had stood silently with Mary by his mother’s grave, obediently attempting to mourn a woman he knew nothing of. He had felt uneasy then, as though caught out in a lie.

  He shook his head. This was beside the point. It was June he must think of. What was June really like? The law, marching purblind and unbeautiful through a green forest, could enumerate the trees of each variety, measure the acreage to the square inch, note with instruments the amount of rain, but it had no eye for life. “Extraordinary only in her sense of devotion.” Surely there was another type of examination possible?

  His lunch came. He was without appetite. Steak and kidney pudding. Stewed plums and custard. Two slabs of buttered white bread. Medicine.

  “I expect you’d agree with me there, wouldn’t you, Maddox?” Samson looked at the food and pursed his lips.

  “Yes,” said Jordan. He began to eat, deliberately, angrily, as though at gun point.

  Everywhere he was prevented.

  22

  Each minute was a slow drop of water, forming lethargically at the end of a tap, swelling gradually and then, after infinite waiting, pulled loose by its own heaviness to fall. And then another, and another. And he couldn’t turn his eyes away or refuse to watch. Like a man tortured with urgent business, yet forced to linger politely on some old fool’s tale of triviality, his attention was helplessly focussed on the court. Each word, each wart, each motion were vivid and irrepressible as fantasy. For he could not believe in the reality of this paraphernalia—the white pillars and arches, the royal coat of arms gaudy with red and blue and gold, the sword of justice, the judge high in his red dressing gown, the neckless lawyers low in whispers and black robes, the precise, endless voice of prosecution.

  It seemed to Jordan that the first witness—the Home Office pathologist—was deliberately unhurried. The weightiness of the irrelevance made Jordan want to cry out “Get on with it, man, get on with it.” Mr. Pollen was, thought Jordan, curiously inept. Out of the long slow pedantry of question and answer emerged facts so simple they could have been put in a single paragraph. The time of death could be fixed “with some certainty” as having occurred between 9.30 and 10 A.M. on March 9. Death by strangulation. Small pieces of brown wool had been found adhering to the victim’s neck, and they did indeed match the
cashmere scarf, Exhibit Number One. Vestiges of tissue under the fingernail matched tissue taken from the prisoner. The girl was in an early stage of pregnancy; the pathologist would put it at about nine weeks. Yes, it was possible—a reluctant, cheek-pulling admission—that the consumption of large quantities of laxative, Gleason’s Palliative, might have an adverse effect on the course of pregnancy—a remote possibility. Only a fool would try it. Certainly it would not by itself cause the foetus to be aborted.

  Heavy-faced and heavy-handed, Pollen sat down with obvious satisfaction at the job he had done. He was the type of man who did himself well and, in the process, ruthlessly bullied waiters, or anyone else if he could. He would be better with a hostile witness.

  Bartlett to Pollen, an eaglet to a dodo. His plumpness concealed by his gown, Bartlett gave the immediate impression of modest but confident intelligence. His voice was pitched on a level of easy and pleasant politeness.

  “Doctor, you have stated that only an ignorant woman would resort to taking laxatives in order to procure an abortion. ‘An ignorant woman’—those were your words. Ignorant of what?”

  “An uneducated woman.”

  “In what respect uneducated?”

  “No woman in her right mind would try to procure an abortion.”

  “No no, Doctor, my question was not directed at the moral principles or emotional stability of a woman who wishes to abort. Did not your use of the term ‘ignorant’ mean ‘ignorant of medical matters’?”

  “Of course she’d be ignorant of medicine. Even if a woman was successful in procuring a miscarriage by this method, it might have quite disastrous consequences.”

  “In what way disastrous?”

  “There would be the possibility of internal bleeding, infection. Only a woman quite ignorant of the dangers would incur such a risk.”

  “Doctor, is it not a commonly held opinion that violent exercise, scalding baths, gin, cod-liver oil, various poisonous or noxious substances may assist in procuring a miscarriage?”

  “It may be a commonly held opinion, sir. But it is not a commonly held medical opinion. Any understanding of the dangers inherent in such an undertaking—”

  “Doctor—a woman knowledgeable in medical matters, would she not submit herself to a surgical operation under proper medical supervision?”

  “That happens to be illegal, except in very specialized circumstances.”

  “Illegal, yes. Being illegal, it is very difficult to find a qualified medical man to undertake such an operation?”

  “Very difficult.”

  “Difficult and expensive?”

  “Doubtless a criminal abortionist would charge heavily.”

  “Doctor, insofar as the procurement of a criminal abortion under proper medical supervision is both difficult and expensive, might not even a knowledgeable woman resort to other means for bringing on a miscarriage? Means such as hot baths, exercise, the taking of laxatives?”

  “My Lord—” Pollen was standing—“I really must object to that question. It is calling for an opinion on the putative state of mind of an entirely hypothetical female.”

  The judge champed his jaws. “Mr. Bartlett?”

  “My Lord, the Crown has obtained expert testimony from this witness to the effect that the consumption of large quantities of laxatives may be held to have an abortive effect, but it has not, as yet, adduced any evidence to show that June Singer in fact consumed large quantities of laxatives. While I am quite prepared to concede that she did so, until it is proved we are still somewhat in the realm of hypothesis.”

  “Well taken, Mr. Bartlett. I shall allow the question,” the judge said. “But try to be as specific as you can.”

  “Very well, my Lord,” said Bartlett. Pollen sat down, and the question was repeated.

  “Well,” said the doctor, tugging at a fold of flesh in his cheek, “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Now, Doctor, let me read you something.” Bartlett picked up a fat book and flipped quickly through it. “Ah. I quote, Doctor. ‘Massive doses of nonprescriptive laxative preparations are sometimes taken in the early months of pregnancy by women desiring to induce a miscarriage. For obvious reasons there are few authenticated cases of an abortion being effected by this means alone, although it may undoubtedly be a contributory factor, particularly where predisposition to miscarriage already exists.’ Would you accept that as a fair statement, Doctor?”

  “I should have to know from what authority it was taken.”

  “Why? Are you not yourself an authority?”

  “I’m not an obstetrician,” snapped the doctor, “nor a gynecologist.”

  “You’re not an obstetrician.” Bartlett paused, marking the page with one finger. “Nor you are. How long since you were in general practice, Doctor?”

  “Twenty-two years.”

  “In that twenty-two years, how many pregnant women have you had as patients?”

  “I am not in general practice, I don’t—”

  “How many pregnant women as patients, Doctor?”

  “None.”

  “In the last twenty-two years, how many babies have you delivered?”

  “None.”

  “None. Not overburdened with practical experience, eh, Doctor? Well, in that case, I’ll be glad to tell you the source of the quotation. It comes from what I believe is generally regarded as one of the leading authorities in the field. A work entitled Pregnancy by Professor W. H. Jardin. I was quoting from the fourth edition, quite up to date, published three years ago by the firm of, ah, Sutlif and Maddox. Are you familiar with it?”

  Smythe sewn, strawboard, grade B London Linen plum, matching topstain, no headbands, twelve square inches rolled imitation gold. The specifications leapt into Jordan’s head. June had wanted damson cloth, but all previous editions had been plum. Pregnancy—“preggers four” they’d called it affectionately. Affectionately because it was almost the oldest book on the list, a quiet, steady money-maker. Damson—it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “I am familiar with Jardin, yes. I know the third edition better.”

  “It is, you would say, a standard work on the subject?”

  “Yes. I used the second edition when I was a medical student.”

  “Now that you know the authority, Doctor, would you accept the statement I read to you as a fair one?”

  “I would accept what Jardin said on the matter, yes.”

  “Anyone who had read, with even ordinary care and attention, the whole of Jardin, could hardly be described as ignorant, could she, Doctor?”

  “It is impossible to say. Someone without medical training could not be relied upon to interpret correctly a medical text.”

  “It is impossible to say she was ignorant?”

  “Well, a reading of Jardin is not going to make anyone automatically knowledgeable.”

  “It is impossible to say she was ignorant?”

  “An intelligent woman—it would be unlikely, I suppose.”

  “Impossible, Doctor? Impossible was the word you used.”

  “Impossible, then. One simply does not—”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Bartlett snapped the book shut, but he did not put it down. “Now, Doctor. You stated earlier that in your opinion Singer was at the time of her death in the ninth or tenth week of pregnancy. Is that correct?”

  “Eight or nine weeks pregnant. Yes.”

  “That is the same thing, is it not?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And your opinion that she was in her ninth or tenth week of pregnancy was based upon the development of the foetus?”

  “It was.”

  “The determination of the duration of the pregnancy by examination of the foetus is a comparatively easy matter, would you not say?”

  “It is not as easy as all that. There is the foetus itself, its position in the womb. But there are a number of other factors which must be taken into consideration, such as the metabolism of the mother, her general state of health, et cet
era.”

  “The diet of the mother during the early weeks of pregnancy, that could be an influential factor, too?”

  “It might.”

  “In this case, it was a factor unknown to you, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. But all these things must be taken—”

  “Quite. A history of complication in the early weeks of pregnancy, this would also have bearing upon the development of the foetus, would it not?”

  “If there was a history of complication, that would have to be taken into consideration, yes. But in a normal—”

  “And in this case—the case of June Singer—nothing was known about the history of the pregnancy, was it?”

  “We know that she tried to abort the baby.”

  “And what effect would that have?”

  “Difficult to say. It’s not a matter upon which a great deal of work has been done.”

  “But it would have some effect upon the development of the baby?”

  “It might, yes. As I say, it’s—”

  “An adverse effect?”

  “It would hardly be likely to be beneficial.”

  “The effect, if there was an effect, would be adverse in the sense that it might retard the normal growth of the foetus?”

  “It’s conceivable. But we are in a large measure in unknown territory here. It’s impossible to be positive on—”

  “Unknown territory. Unknown to whom?”

  “Medical research has not—”

  “Unknown to you, Doctor?”

  “Obviously it would be unknown to me if—”

  “And what steps did you take to remedy this lack of knowledge?”

  “My duties require me to keep abreast of the current medical literature.”

  “Abreast of the literature—I see.” Slight touch of sarcasm. “Doctor, what were the qualifications of the physician upon whom you called to make a second examination of the foetus?”

  “Qualifications? I am afraid I do not understand. There was no second examination called for, or needed, in this case.”