Now we shall learn the truth, I thought grimly as I posted it. If the reply was satisfactory I could always say that the car had failed to materialize.
Millie’s answer came by return of post.
Dear Frank,
thank you for the welcome letter which I received quite safe and how pleased I am that you are in such good spirits and will be seeing Johnny soon, I hope the weather stays fine for you and that you will both have a nice time, Dickie’s face is a lot better you will be glad to hear though his cold still trouble him and I am giving him a sirup which I have from the chemist but “rest assured,” I will soon have him well again. I shall be at home this Saturday if you care to come but do not come on the Sunday as we are going over to Megan’s for the day and I am afraid you will not be able to take Evie out for a while as she is not well.
so cheerio and all the best.
“Not well!” The words struck a chill to my heart. Then I perceived that, in conjunction with “for a while,” a natural feminine unwellness was perhaps intended. I had not thought of that. Could it be true? Or was it an excuse? I made inquiries in the dog world. Yes, it could be true and probably was; Evie was about eight months old, the age when bitches usually endure their first heat. She would be beyond my reach for three weeks. How maddening! Now I would have to wait all that time before I could put my doubts to the test again! Yet Millie’s letter was unexceptionable, friendly, prompt, even sprightly— and she could afford all that, I thought darkly, with such a magnificent checkmate move.
And then, suddenly, the very next day—Megan was out in her reckoning, it seemed—the visit to Johnny arrived! I recognized it instantly, the buff official envelope, and pounced upon it. The slip inside, signed by the Governor, authorized a visit to the prisoner named for twenty minutes any afternoon between 1:30 and 3:30. Johnny! At last! Then I perceived, to my chagrin, that the prisoner named was not Johnny at all but someone called Albert Newby. Fools! Dolts! They had sent me the wrong visit! In a burst of vexation I returned it to the Governor with a terse note to say that a mistake had been made, that the prisoner I knew and wished to see was John Burney, and that I had never heard of Albert Newby in my life. Could the mistake kindly be rectified instantly.
But the amended visit was not returned. Nothing came, no acknowledgment, no reply of any sort. Three days of fruitless waiting passed and I started to fidget in my mind. The fourth day brought no news. Nebulous doubts and fears began to assail me. On the sixth day, in a state of anxiety bordering on terror, I flew down to Megan. Hurrying up the steps I rattled the letter-box. There was no response. I rattled again. And again. How everything conspired to frustrate me! What should I do? As I stood there by the closed door, agitated and at a loss, it seemed to me that the dirty curtains moved slightly. Was it my imagination? With a desperate ferocity I attacked the letter-box once more. Suddenly a window above my head shot up and a floozie looked out. It was “the lady upstairs,” Megan’s friend.
“Do you know where Megan is?”
“She’s here,” said the lady upstairs, and Megan’s head popped out too. They were like two hens peering out of a crate.
“I’ll be down,” said she and, in a moment, opened the door.
“I was afraid you were out,” I said. “I’ve been rattling and rattling.”
“Didn’t Rita hear you?”
“Yes,” I said grimly. “If she’s here.”
She was, sitting up at the table in the front room, surrounded by colored chalks with which she was busy drawing what looked like an endless row of upright cucumbers in an exercise book. Sprawled over the table, with her tongue out, she took no notice of us at all.
“Didn’t you hear the door?” asked Megan perfunctorily as we passed. Without detaching her attention from art, little Rita shook her head, then nodded it, then shook it again. I sat down heavily in Johnny’s arm-chair and explained to Megan what had happened, while she studied me with her pale, cold eyes.
“Have I done wrong?” I asked, staring at her appealingly.
“What did you want to send it back for?”
“But it was the natural thing to do. I wanted to see Johnny, not Albert Newby.”
“I expect you’d have seen him if you’d gone,” said she with a faint smile.
“It was a trick, you mean?” The hideous fear had ruined me all night. “But how? How?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Megan virtuously. “But there must be plenty of boys there that don’t come from London and haven’t no one to visit them, and perhaps they sell their visits to the London boys for a cigarette.”
“But isn’t it frightfully dangerous?”
Megan shrugged contemptuously.
“There’s hundreds there, coming and going. The screws never know half their names.”
“Then if I’d gone and asked for Newby, Johnny would have appeared?”
“I expect so,” said Megan amused. “Of course I don’t know.”
I groaned with horror. It was so simple, so obvious, as soon as it was explained.
“Why ever didn’t he warn me?”
“I expect he thought you’d fluff. Why didn’t you just keep the visit instead of sending it back?”
“But it’s what I do!” I cried despairingly. “It’s what I do! It’s the way I think! If things go wrong I set them right. If memoranda come to my office with mistakes, I point out the mistakes and have them corrected. It’s what I do. I’m not used to this kind of thing.” Megan was examining me with critical detachment. “I’m afraid I’ve got him into the most serious trouble,” I said humbly.
“He’ll have to use his loaf,” said she with a laugh. “And Newby too.”
“God! What have I done! Will he lose his remission, do you think?”
“I shouldn’t worry,” she said kindly. “Johnny’s smart. I expect he’ll think up something.” After a pause she added: “Would you like a cup of tea? I was just going to make one.”
I accepted gratefully. She was sorry for me and I was touched. As soon as she left the room I took a pound note out of my pocket and put it quickly on the mantelpiece under the frame in which Dickie and I lived cheek by jowl. Turning round I caught Rita’s eye, before she reapplied it to her industrious occupation with art. She was really quite a pretty child, I thought, with her pale, elfin, clever little face, and—the mocking reflection occurred to me—she would not have perpetrated my blunder!
“What are you doing?” I asked respectfully.
“Draw-ring.”
“And what are you drawing?”
“You.”
I craned my head to look. A sort of turnip had been added to the field of cucumbers. Odious brat! A sudden annoyance took me at having parted with my pound and I gazed at it with a frown. Had she seen me put it there? Could I not get it back? I glanced at her; her head was bent, but I had the feeling that she was watching me. Leaning my elbow on the mantelpiece I gave the distance to the note a swift measuring look; if I lowered my arm . . . . But once again, glancing back at Rita, I could have sworn that, in that brief instant, she had peeped up. Abandoning the hopeless attempt, I returned to my chair and stared dejectedly at the carpet. Megan came in with the tea.
“What do you think will happen now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. If I don’t hear soon I shall apply for another visit on compassionate grounds. They don’t like to refuse that.”
Could I ask to go with her? I could not.
“Will you let me know as soon as you get news? I shall be worried to death until I hear.”
“Yes, I’ll phone you. Do you want a cup?” she asked, turning to Rita. Without looking up, the child wagged her head in assent. “Haven’t you a tongue in your head?” Megan inquired phlegmatically. Since it was still sticking out, the question was superfluous, and Rita appeared to take it as such for she did not deign to reply. “Johnny’s mother gave her those chalks she’s playing with. They was over Sunday.” She laughed. “Dickie won’t have nothing to do with me now.
He won’t so much as look at me. He peeps at me out of the corner of his eye and if I look he looks away. It’s a scream! But most of the time he cried to be taken home. ‘Home!’ That’s what he calls it.”
“Did they say anything about Evie? I wanted to take her out, but Millie said she was in heat. It could be true, but I wondered. I keep imagining that I’m being prevented from seeing her.”
“Yes, they said she wasn’t well.” Megan paused, then tittered. “I don’t think you’ll get hold of her again.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked sharply.
“It was something Tom said.”
“What did he say?”
“He said about not letting her go.”
“He said what! How did the matter come up?”
Megan eyed me with amusement.
“I said you wanted to buy her. Was that all right?”
“Of course. Why not? She’s not their dog. What exactly did Tom say?”
She knitted her anemic brows:
“He said ‘The dog doesn’t leave my house again.’”
“I’ll put the R.S.P.C.A. on to him!” I cried. Then, with an effort, I brought it out: “Look, I must see Johnny. If you get a visit to him first I would like to go with you. Do you mind?”
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
“Then you’ll let me know the moment you hear anything?”
“Yes, I’ll phone you.”
And how time dragged! The rest of that upsetting day passed, the next and the next. When I returned home in the evenings from work I dared not leave my telephone in case Megan rang, yet I could not concentrate my attention on anything indoors. What dire consequence of my stupidity had befallen Johnny? Deprivation of privilege, loss of remission, solitary confinement, bread-and-water: my mind, a prey to every kind of hideous imagining, however improbable, was ceaselessly engaged with his inevitable punishment. And in my dreams I saw him thrashed, the belt taken off, the lash laid on his honey-colored flesh. To have exposed his deception to the Governor himself! If I had actually designed to injure him—and the knowledge that I had, in fact, been angry with him shattered me the more—I could not have put him more successfully on the spot. At length, after four days of the utmost wretchedness, I could bear it no longer and hurried over to Megan’s, but rattle at the door as I might no one came. On the following day I went again, with the same result, and as I stood there drumming upon the shut house, which might or might not be empty but which vouchsafed no response, a feeling of total despair overcame me, of the loneliness of life, the impossibility of human communication, the futility of all endeavor. Knock, knock as one might against the heart of man, it gave forth only a hollow mockery of sound.
Putting up my jacket collar, for a drizzle of rain had started to fall, I turned away.
Megan and little Rita were coming down the street towards me! Rushing to meet them I cried:
“Is there any news?”
“Yes, I’ve just seen him. I was going to phone you.”
“You’ve seen him! How is he? What happened?”
“Oh, he’s all right,” said she with a smile.
The relief was almost more than I could bear.
“He didn’t get into trouble?”
“Well, the Governor sent for him, but he managed to scrape out of it.”
“What a mercy! He wasn’t punished at all, then?” She shook her head, amused. “Was he angry with me?”
“Well, he was a bit browned off and he asked why you’d sent the visit back, but I told him what you’d said and that you was upset, and he said to give you his best and tell you not to worry.”
I could almost have kissed her. Then I noticed her appearance. She was all dolled up, her face thick with slap. She was wearing a two-piece costume, a black tunic, and light gray skirt, so unsuitable to her compassionate grounds that she could only have put it on purposely, to accentuate them. Neither garment, indeed, could any longer contain her swollen stomach; safety pins secured them where they failed to meet. Over her head was draped a scarf with “Into Battle” printed round its borders; tanks, planes, and soldiers crawled on her black hair, and the long barrel of a howitzer pointed down her forehead into her left eye.
I said coldly:
“Why did you not phone me when the visit came?”
“I did phone you. There was no reply.”
“When did you phone?”
“Yesterday.”
“At what time?”
She hesitated:
“It must have been about six.”
That was the time when I had been rattling at her door. I stared at her. The nearest public telephone, the one they generally used, was just round the corner in the Fulham Palace Road. I had passed it on my way to visit her. Could she have been actually in it as I went by? Or had she rung up from some other box? Or was it simply a lucky shot? Or, darker suspicion still, had she been lurking all the time in the silent house, knowing who knocked and bent upon not sharing the visit in her pocket? I stared at her steadfastly. If my eyes could have torn her open she would have fallen apart at my feet.
“When did the visit come?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“You must have applied for it directly after I saw you?”
“I didn’t apply. I was just going to when it came. It was the official visit.”
The official visit! I had forgotten all about it! And it had gone, of course, to her, not to me. It struck me then, with the force of a blow, that I had been conceded nothing after all. The visit I had had and bungled had not been an official one, Megan had not stood aside for me, nothing had been given up. I might do what I could for them, nothing would be done for me. Like the letter I had received and ignored, the visit had been something extra, something squeezed in, something that could be spared without loss to themselves, a sop, a fob. . . .
“Did you ask him about Evie?”
“Yes, he won’t sell her. I thought he wouldn’t.”
“You told him the price I named?”
“Yes, I told him. He wouldn’t hear of it. He—” She suddenly spluttered, clapping her hand to her mouth. Of course! Of course! How could I have been so naïve? Was it likely that Johnny in prison would allow me to hand twenty-five pounds to his wife to “keep” for him till he came out? A fine joke he must have thought it!
“Are you coming in?” Megan asked, looking up at the weeping sky. I mumbled an excuse and left her.
Dear Millie,
I expect Megan will have told you by now about my misfortune over the visit to Johnny. It was sent in the name of some other prisoner, and I thought this a mistake and returned it for correction. But it was a trick of Johnny’s and if I’d gone I would have seen him. I was terribly worried because I thought I’d got him into trouble, but luckily he managed to get out of it. It has been a great disappointment to me too. I’m afraid I shan’t be able to come up and see you this weekend, but could I come the following Wednesday, when I’m beginning a week’s holiday? I’m going down into the country afterwards and would like to take Evie with me if I may. She will be over her indisposition by then and it will be good for her. I would bring her back to you the weekend after. I hope you are all quite well and that Dickie’s health has ceased to be an anxiety to you.
I brooded over this letter one evening a few days later. It seemed a perfectly good letter, easy, frank, friendly, well-intentioned. By pretending ignorance of Tom’s remark—and they could hardly suppose that Megan had repeated it to me—it would discover what weight, if any, was to be attached to it. And everything depended upon that. No dog, no money! I said to myself. The date of the proposed visit had been carefully selected. Evie would be completely off heat by then, so that excuse could not be used again, and Millie’s half-day would avoid a meeting with Tom. I dreaded seeing him. The acutest embarrassment overcame me at the thought of meeting either of them, but him I dreaded. How he must have chuckled at the failure of my mission to Johnny! Then the proposition itself was close to
the truth. I had made no actual plans for a holiday, but I was terribly run down, I longed to get away, and had now a quite urgent desire to see Evie again and to take her with me. . . . The only thing was, ought I not, perhaps, to put Dickie’s keep into the envelope too? No, why should I? No dog, no money! Yet, on the other hand, it was what I had always done in the past when I had had to postpone my monthly visit; it would be the normal thing to do, and I wanted everything to seem normal. . . . I brooded. To withhold the money; that would probably look to them what in fact it would be, blackmail, threat. Might it not put their backs up? And surely it should be my policy to give them every pretext for generosity. . . . I brooded somberly. Then I put the money in. For Evie’s sake, I said. But it was more than that, I knew; it was a propitiatory sacrifice, for the truth of the matter was that I was scared stiff.
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