London Rain

by Nicola Upson

  ‘C of E?’

  The voice came again and Vivienne realised that the woman behind the desk was addressing her. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I need your religion. Are you Church of England?’

  Vivienne couldn’t think of a time when religion had seemed less relevant, but the option she had been offered was as good as any and she nodded. In return, she was handed a white identity card, and she noticed that there were only two other options – red for Catholicism and blue for the Jewish faith. Prison life obviously had no room for subtleties, and she wondered what would have happened if she’d been a Moslem or a Christian Scientist.

  ‘Date of birth?’

  ‘Ninth of October, 1899.’

  ‘And next of kin?’

  She paused, genuinely at a loss for an answer. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t have anyone.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before you killed him.’ Vivienne heard the comment clearly, as she had been meant to. She looked round, but the other prisoners simply stared back at her and it was impossible to say who had spoken. Shaken, she answered the rest of the questions as quietly as possible and allowed herself to be led upstairs to a larger room with a glass roof and a number of small cubicles. Each had a wooden seat and a couple of hooks for clothes, like the changing rooms at a swimming baths, except here the locks were on the outside. She was given a torn old copy of an illustrated weekly to read, and told to wait. The walls were as thin as the paper in her hand, and she could hear every sound around her – the cheerful singing of the drunk next door, the tears of a young girl who had stolen a dress in a moment of madness and didn’t understand that a promise to return it was no longer enough. One hour passed, then two, and just as she thought they had forgotten her, the cubicle door was unlocked.

  They took her to an office and told her to remove all her jewellery except her wedding ring. When she discarded that, too, and slid it across the desk with her necklace and earrings, they looked at her curiously but said nothing. Her handbag was emptied in front of her, tipped roughly upside down so that the contents spilled out onto the table: lipstick and perfume, loose coins, handkerchief, stamps, pen and paper – a universal language among women. A nurse inspected her for headlice, then she was made to stand behind a three-leaf screen and remove her clothes, item by item, while a prison officer watched her. She closed her eyes while they examined her again, defenceless and exposed as a stranger’s hands explored her body, then she was weighed and measured and given a shapeless grey dressing gown, rough like a shroud, and a pair of felt slippers which were far too big and made her shuffle like an old woman. They took her to the bathroom, and the wave of nausea came again as she saw the small, cracked bar of soap and imagined whose hands it had touched; she washed without it, but still it felt as though she were rubbing the dirt into her skin, and she wondered if she would ever feel clean again.

  They let her keep her own clothes, then took her to the hospital wing, which made no sense because she wasn’t ill. The ward had half a dozen beds in it, placed so close together that there was barely room for a small wooden cupboard next to each. At one end, obscuring most of a depressing brown linoleum floor, stood a long scrubbed table, obviously for communal eating, and Vivienne realised that the lack of privacy she had experienced so far was nothing compared to this. From now on, she would never be alone. She sat down on the bed she was given, trying not to meet anybody’s eye, aware that the other women were staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. In the distance, she heard a baby’s cry, alien and unsettling in these surroundings, and it shocked her to realise that a child could be born into a place like this.

  She drank some tea, dark and unbearably strong, but refused the bread and margarine which was served to her at the table. A doctor bombarded her with questions and she gave him the answers she thought he wanted, then she was escorted to the lavatory and made to change into her night things, ready for bed. All evening, she did as she was told, despising her own meekness. No one had bossed her around since Olivia died, not even Anthony, and all the resentment of youth came flooding back to her. Now, like then, she was trapped, and later – when she closed her eyes and tried to sleep – it was her sister’s face, not Anthony’s, that she saw, goading her again just as she had when she was alive, taunting her with the memory of what she had done, and reminding her that it was never too late to pay.

  Part Five

  The Wild Party

  1

  Josephine lay in bed and listened to the rain, brave enough with Marta beside her to consider what Vivienne Beresford might want. They had only met twice, and although the second conversation had been frank and confiding, she didn’t understand how she could be of any use to Vivienne now. In the normal scheme of things, they might have become friends; after what had happened, she doubted they would be given the chance.

  ‘Is there any point in my telling you to be careful?’ Marta murmured sleepily into her hair.

  ‘I didn’t know you were awake.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Josephine smiled and hooked her foot round Marta’s, bringing them closer together. ‘When will you go to see her?’

  ‘I’m still deciding whether or not I should go at all. What do you think?’

  ‘Selfishly, I’d rather you didn’t, because I know it will upset you. But I also know that you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t, just in case you could have helped.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can help. I don’t even know what she wants.’

  ‘Then that’s reason in itself to go. You’ll always be wondering if you don’t.’ Marta sat up and reached over to the chair by the bed for a dressing gown. ‘And I’ve been in her position, so I can guess what she wants – someone to talk to who isn’t going to judge her, someone she doesn’t know very well so she can say what she likes, and – most importantly – someone who isn’t part of that system.’ She thought for a moment, then added: ‘It’s hard to explain, but the minute you step into a prison . . . actually, even before that – the minute you’re charged with something, you lose sight of who you are. You’re no longer a human being, because you’re defined by what you’ve done, not by how you feel. There’s no room for emotion in that system, even though emotion is what put you there – for most people, anyway. Everything is about the process of justice, and everyone you meet is tied up with that on one side or the other – police, lawyers, prison officers, doctors. It’s relentless and you just want it to stop, but it never does, so the best you can hope for is that someone will occasionally remind you of who you were before the nightmare started.’

  ‘I wish I’d been there for you,’ Josephine said quietly, taking her hand.

  ‘You tried, but I wouldn’t let you.’

  ‘I know, and I never quite understood why.’

  ‘Because I couldn’t let you in. Things were bad enough, but to leave this world loving you would have been unbearable.’ Gently, she wiped away a tear from Josephine’s cheek. ‘Go and see her, but promise me you’ll try not to get too involved – there’s only one way that this can end, and I don’t want you destroyed by it.’

  ‘I won’t let that happen, I promise.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘No,’ Josephine said, knowing how much courage it had taken for Marta even to make the offer, and loving her all the more for it. ‘You don’t have to do that. Just be here when I come back.’

  2

  Josephine had been to Holloway once before while researching a book, but the personal nature of this visit made the prison’s peculiar atmosphere of order and despair even more oppressive than she remembered it. She waited nervously in the deputy governor’s comfortable, book-lined sitting room, pleased at least that there would be one familiar face to greet her: Mary Size was a fellow member of the Cowdray Club, and Josephine had been grateful in the past for her wisdom and understanding. She was a compassionate woman, dedicated to reform in all areas of prison life, and if any of th
e women in her care could be said to be lucky, their fortune lay in the woman who governed their days.

  ‘Josephine! I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  ‘Please don’t worry,’ Josephine said, kissing the deputy governor on both cheeks and brushing aside the apology. ‘I appreciate your finding the time to see me at all. I know how busy you are.’

  ‘Oh, it’s always a pleasure, and in this particular case I was glad to get your call. Mrs Beresford needs a friend and I’m sure you’ll do her the power of good. But first things first – how are you?’

  She sat down on the sofa, every inch the favourite aunt, and Josephine marvelled again that this kind, softly spoken woman should have earned herself such a formidable reputation, the scourge of the Home Office and of anyone else who resisted progress. ‘I’m fine, thank you. Recovering from the Coronation like the rest of the country.’

  ‘Wasn’t it marvellous? And how is Marta?’

  The soft Irish inflection in her voice gave the name an extra warmth. ‘Very well. She’s working for the Hitchcocks at the moment, and thoroughly enjoying it.’

  ‘Ah, that must be glamorous.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that. She loves the scriptwriting, but there’s a lot of mucking in involved. I believe one of her most recent tasks was to fetch more fish from Newlyn for some particularly unobliging seagulls.’

  Mary Size threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh well, no job is perfect. Give her my best when you see her.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Now, you probably have some questions before we take you along to the hospital wing.’

  ‘The hospital wing? Has something happened?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. It’s confusing to an outsider, but every woman on remand for murder is sent to the hospital wing for observation, no matter how sane or well she is. In Beresford’s case, it’s as well that we keep an eye on her. Her story comes with a certain amount of notoriety, obviously, but the strength of feeling against her surprises me, I have to say. The other women are usually kinder to newcomers, but they’ve given her a particularly difficult time from the moment she arrived.’

  ‘And how is she coping with that?’

  ‘To be honest, not very well. I think it bewilders her.’

  It would be nothing compared to the hostility she would experience in court, Josephine thought. The newspapers had already made a martyr of her husband; when they named the woman charged with his murder, Vivienne Beresford could wave goodbye to any chance of sympathy or even justice. ‘I have no idea why she wants to see me,’ Josephine admitted. ‘We’ve only met twice.’

  ‘And yet you came. Perhaps that answers your question. Mutual respect counts for a lot, especially in prison.’

  Josephine nodded. ‘Yes, I imagine it does. Has she seen anyone else?’

  ‘Only her solicitor. I’ve arranged for you to have a private room just off the ward. Technically speaking, you should be an official prison visitor to enjoy a privilege like that.’ She smiled, and there was a twinkle in her eye as she added: ‘But I haven’t given up hope of persuading you to devote some of your time to prison reform. Think of this as a trial run.’

  Josephine’s heart sank at the thought of spending time at Holloway voluntarily, but she tried not to let it show ‘Thank you, Mary. I’ll give it some thought.’ She stood up, keen now to get on with an experience she was dreading. ‘How long can we have?’

  ‘An hour. But you’re welcome to come back another day. Remand visiting is at six, and I don’t envisage a queue for Beresford – not for the right reasons, anyway. I’ll get someone to take you over there now, but if there’s anything else you need from me, Josephine, please ask.’

  The warder summoned to escort her was young and full of energy, and Josephine wondered what had attracted her to such a desperate vocation, but there was no time to ask. The hospital complex was on the ground floor, quickly reached down a wide stone passage, and Josephine noticed that the smell of the building changed as soon as they left the main wings behind – disinfectant masked the mixture of sweat and hopelessness, but did not entirely hide it. Unsettled by a glimpse of padded cells and a lavatory marked with a red cross, she tried not to look to left or right but focused instead on her guide. They walked up some steps and past a large room which looked to all intents and purposes like a normal hospital ward – except that the nurses’ uniforms were interspersed here and there with those of prison officers – before arriving at the room that Mary Size had allocated.

  It was hard to regard it as a privilege. The space was tiny, barely larger than a cupboard, and furnished with two upright chairs and a scuffed wooden table. There was a small window high up in the wall, but it seemed stubbornly reluctant to let any light in, and Josephine sat down as invited on the chair that faced the door, trying to think of another room that had depressed her as much as this one. She waited a long time – at least, that was how it felt – but eventually there was a noise in the corridor outside and Vivienne Beresford appeared without announcement or ceremony in the doorway. She was wearing her own clothes, but that only served to emphasise how much she had changed in just a few days. It wasn’t simply the loss of weight or the shadows under her eyes; she looked haunted, detached somehow from the present moment, and isolated by fear and grief; her expression – or rather the lack of it – was familiar to Josephine but she had never seen it in a woman before, only in a man returned from war. Images of Vivienne as she had been ran through her head – teasing Julian in the BBC canteen, walking out through the foyer with her husband, her head held high in spite of the embarrassment to which she had just been subjected – and she realised now what a strong impression Vivienne had made on her. Marta had been right to warn her, but the damage was done; she already felt involved.

  The warder left them alone but her face appeared immediately at the square opening cut into the door. ‘She won’t go,’ Vivienne said, following Josephine’s eyes. ‘There’s always someone watching. I lie in bed at night, longing for the lights to go out, but they never do – not completely.’ She sat down and gave Josephine an awkward half-smile. ‘Thank you for coming. I wasn’t sure if you would.’

  ‘Neither was I at first. How are you?’

  She ignored the question, perhaps because she wasn’t listening, perhaps because the answer was so painfully obvious. ‘Did you know there are children in here?’ Josephine shook her head, unsettled by the disjointed conversation. ‘They play in the garden when it’s fine and we all know their names. Sometimes a woman walks down the corridor with a toddler in a pink romper suit, and they all cluck and coo like they would in the street.’ Her words were distant and distracted, almost as if it were Josephine who had called for the meeting, and she was simply waiting for her to get to the point. ‘Strange, isn’t it? Just for a moment, they can block out the ugliness and pretend that this is normal.’ Her voice cracked on the final word and Josephine waited for her to compose herself. ‘I don’t seem to be able to manage that yet. I wonder if that makes me stronger or weaker than they are?’

  ‘I’m not sure you should be judging yourself in that way. Aren’t there enough people doing that already?’ Josephine took a cigarette case out of her bag and slid it across the table, where it sat untouched. ‘It’s easy to lose all sense of who you are when someone else decides your every move. I imagine you wonder who she is, this woman walking round in your body.’ There was a flicker of surprise in Vivienne’s eyes, followed swiftly by gratitude for a small moment of understanding, and Josephine could see how significant Marta’s words had been.

  ‘I think I’m going mad, Josephine. And my God, you were right – it’s so much worse to be accused of something you haven’t done. I knew I’d pay for what I did to Anthony, and it’s right that I should – but not this as well.’ She hesitated, then looked directly at Josephine for the first time. ‘I didn’t kill her. Do you believe me?’

  Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to speak the actress�
�s name. ‘Yes,’ Josephine said quietly. ‘I believe you.’ The question had been a test, but it was Vivienne who seemed relieved that she had passed. She took a cigarette from the case and Josephine lit it for her. ‘What does your solicitor say?’

  ‘That I should plead guilty to everything and throw myself on the mercy of the jury in the hope that they’ll ask for leniency. He’s a fool, obviously.’ She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse, and Josephine looked in horror at the ring of purple bruises around her wrist. ‘The woman who did that is serving six years for beating her toddler within an inch of his life, but she was a big fan of my husband’s. What hope do I stand with a jury of decent people if someone like that feels morally superior?’ She re-buttoned the sleeve, wincing at the tenderness of the skin. ‘If we were in France I’d be sent flowers, but the English hate a crime passionnel – look at Edith Thompson. They didn’t waste much time here in showing me her grave.’

  ‘Is that what it was? A crime of passion? Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but there didn’t seem to be much of that involved in your marriage.’

  ‘No, that’s what my lawyer said. He seemed very disappointed that Anthony didn’t hit me, or at least that I won’t pretend he did. The best advice he could give was to prepare for a long haul. Murder trials can go on for some time, apparently, and I doubt this one will be short of coverage.’ She stubbed the cigarette out and took another, acknowledging the action with a wry smile. ‘I don’t even smoke, but obviously that other woman does. They always used to tease me about it in the office. My puritanical streak, they called it.’ The ordinariness of the memory stopped her in her tracks for a moment. ‘It’s funny, Josephine, but I feel so let down by the Corporation. I think that hurts even more than Anthony’s betrayals – I’d got used to those over the years. I should have known they’d turn against me and take his side, I suppose, but it still hurts.’