‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? Make a note of that please, doctor. Punter here doesn’t know . . . Ho ho ho . . . Doesn’t know? Bring a straitjacket. We’ll teach him to know.’
‘Leave me alone.’ Jason turned away on his bunk.
‘I’ll leave you alone all right. It’s them as won’t. Listen, let me tell you what they do. You ever see that film Cuckoo’s Nest? Something like that. Well, that ain’t nothing to Loxton, mate. I done time there. You can’t tell me nothing about Loxton. Worse than Broadmoor. Couldn’t even look out a window. Couldn’t even stand by a window.’
‘I told you before, I don’t want to hear about these places.’
‘Don’t want to hear? Gent doesn’t want to hear. What’s that? Oh. Doctor says you got to hear. Do you good. Maybe you’re going to a place like Loxton. Maybe even Loxton itself. Listen, when I was there you had to get permission to go to the toilet. Even to cross the room. You been crying in here. Oh, yes, I heard you. And in your sleep too. I seen people cry at Loxton for weeks, months. This is the Savoy, mate.’
‘For Christ’s sake I don’t want to hear! If you don’t leave me alone—’
‘What? Put the boot in? Maybe you can and maybe you can’t. You got big hands, Jason. You can do some damage with those – if you know how. But I don’t think you do, see? I think you’re a cream puff. And I think you should . . . What’s that, doc? Yeah. Listen and learn. Right.’
Sweete put his hand to his head in a two-fingered salute. ‘Boy scouts be prepared.’
Then he said, ‘We’re on remand, right? So we got privileges. But in Loxton you got to earn them. You even got to earn the right to work. And the only way to do that is to get in with the nurses and the only way to do THAT is to grass on your mates. Someone got a shiv – you go and tell. Someone got some dope – you go and tell. Anything – you go and tell. Then they let you work.
‘But if you get snotty with them, it’s solitary, old sport. And not just for a couple of days. I knew blokes who were in solitary for weeks and weeks. When they come out they couldn’t talk properly.
‘They take your clothing away from you in solitary. And you become an animal . . .’
Jason was pressing his fingers into his ears.
Sweete stood over him. Then he said, ‘Sleep well, Jason old fellow. Nightie night.’
*
Anne stood at the big windows of Clive’s apartment and looked south across the Thames. The view from the penthouse of the Plaza Tower in Chelsea Harbour was the kind enjoyed only by the seriously rich. Looking down now, as the bright autumn afternoon turned to pearl grey dusk, she could see a series of famous international names and logos in the mall below. The discreet neon glowed expensively in the half light.
And then, past the mall, was the tiny marina with the huge motor yachts moored so closely together that she imagined there would be a general post when one wanted to manoeuvre into the Thames.
Or perhaps they never moved. In all the times she had been in Clive’s apartment she had never seen one leave the marina. Maybe they were only there to be looked at by their owners. And who were their owners? Who had money these days for floating gin palaces? Arabs? Japanese?
She sipped her champagne and listened to the low hum of Clive’s voice on the bedroom phone. At last he hung up and came to join her. He had the Veuve Cliquot in his hand.
‘Let me top you up.’
‘No thanks. Clive, that’s a minimalist marina.’ She pointed with her glass. ‘The most minimalist marina I’ve ever seen.’
She felt slightly floaty.
‘What do you mean?’ Clive said.
While in the bedroom he had changed into his maroon and blue silk dressing gown. So, she thought, they were getting down to the business of the afternoon.
‘Small. Tiny.’
‘Well you wouldn’t expect them to build a huge marina here. Not enough space.’
‘You’ve taken it literally, darling. It was only an observation.’
‘Okay, but have you any idea how much the square footage is here?’
‘Not a clue.’
She felt his fingers in her hair.
‘A fortune.’
‘The boats are . . . well, they’re not exactly round-the-world racers, are they?’
‘I like them. I’m thinking of getting one when a mooring comes up.’
His fingers were on her bra strap.
‘Why don’t we go into the bedroom,’ she said. ‘Then we won’t spill our wine.’
His bed was soft and luxurious. Clive was hard and energetic, and made love, not with indecent haste, but without loitering. He came like a jack hammer and she was glad the mattress was soft. Then he slowly deflated, a spent balloon, and lay with his head next to her shoulder.
She thought he had gone to sleep but he moved slightly and said, ‘Well?’
‘Very nice.’
‘No, not that. But thank you. Have you thought about it?’
‘You know, darling, I’ve had a lot on my mind. Father. New school for Hilly. New house. New job.’
‘I realise that. I’m not pressing.’
The phone rang. He sat up.
‘Clive . . .’ It was a warning.
‘Okay.’
The answering machine whirred into action and he lay back again. But he did not relax completely.
‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘I’ve often wondered: why me?’
‘Well . . . I love you . . . And I want you . . .’
‘Thank you. But I’m not a good bet, you know. There’s my father. And there’s Hilly. And I’ve got a profession I want to continue with. I mean I’m not God’s gift to anyone, much less a tycoon.’
‘You make the word sound squalid. Anyway I’m not a tycoon.’
‘You’re supposed to say yes you are God’s gift. But never mind. And of course you’re a tycoon. You buy and sell companies. You have a flash apartment. That’s tycoonery.’
‘My apartment isn’t flash.’
‘Come on, darling, just look at it. All tinted glass and chrome steel. Plants brought in from a contract gardener.’
‘You don’t like it?’
‘I didn’t say that. To tell you the truth, part of me just loves it. All the luxury and the security . . . But part of me says it’s too much. Not this apartment, but the whole Chelsea Harbour development. There are so many wretchedly poor people in the world and—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He rose on one elbow. ‘What about your own Georgian house in Kingstown? You’re like the French socialists: vote to the left, live to the right. Don’t you understand that if there weren’t people like me—’
‘You’d have to be invented. Okay, Clive. It’s too nice an afternoon to argue.’
‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Don’t be huffy.’
He lay back with his hands under his head. ‘If you married me you could furnish it how you liked and practise your profession. I mean you don’t really want to go on in the prison service, do you?’
She had never thought of the prison service as permanent, but now, hearing the disparagement in his voice, she bridled. ‘Maybe I will, maybe not, but I’m going to give it my best shot. Just remember that when I came back from Africa the job in London, the super job in the super practice, had been given to someone else. They simply blew me away because I had to fetch my father. I had no choice. I’m not just going to dump the prison service like I was dumped. They’re short staffed as it is.’
The phone rang again. This time she did not stop him. He swung his legs off the bed and padded into the drawing-room. He had a good body, she thought.
Through the half-open bedroom door she could hear his voice; not the words but the tone. It was the tone he used when speaking to his mother.
She wondered if the first call had also been from Mrs Parker. Trust her not to trust the answering machine. When she wanted Clive it was NOW.
The first time she had met Mrs Parker was in her
flat in Richmond. It was in a 1950s block, redbrick with metal-framed windows and a flowery name: something like Clematis Court. She had invited them to lunch: tinned tomato soup, tinned steak-and-kidney pudding, tinned peaches, tinned cream. Clive very serious. Anne on her best behaviour as befitted someone being displayed as a possible future daughter-in-law. Clive had not put it that way, of course, but that’s what it meant.
Mrs Parker was stick-like and had what looked to Anne like a thyroid condition. She was in her late seventies and wore heavy make-up and an auburn wig, which sometimes slipped to one side giving her an abandoned appearance.
She had been a widow for many years. Her late husband, who had worked as the accountant in a firm making chutneys and pickles, had left her with the flat and a modest income.
She was a coaster-and-doily lady. There were coasters everywhere: on the arms of chairs, on small nests of tables, on the drinks trolley, on the display cabinet. Anne even found one in the bathroom under the soap dish. She also had a large supply of teaspoons with coats-of-arms on them from places like Carmarthen and Inverness and Exeter – spoils of her annual beano on a coach tour.
But it was her treatment of Clive that Anne remembered best. At that time he was in his late thirties – he was forty-one now – and a successful businessman. To Mrs Parker he was still young Clive aged eighteen.
Before they had their lunch Mrs Parker had various ‘little jobs’ she had saved up for him to do: like changing the plug on her electric blanket, mending a window catch, getting her suitcase down from the top of her wardrobe so that she could put away some of her summer clothing.
Clive did these things without comment and without resentment. It was clear he had done them for many years. While he was thus occupied Mrs Parker talked to Anne, or rather complained to her. She complained about friends who did not come often enough to visit her; she complained about the weather, crime, the television. A long list.
Then she seemed to focus directly on Anne for the first time. A doctor? Wasn’t she a bit young to be a doctor? What experience had she? If she didn’t mind her saying so, Mrs Parker preferred male doctors; men with long experience; who specialised in internal medicine.
When they left, after that first meeting, Clive said, ‘I think she likes you.’
‘How can you tell?’
The acid in her voice caused him to come to his mother’s defence. ‘Don’t judge her too harshly. My father put her on a pedestal. Did everything for her. It’s not her fault.’ He paused, then said, ‘And she’s bloody lonely.’
Now, in the penthouse, Clive put down the phone and padded back to the bedroom. He looked preoccupied.
‘Mother thinks she’s eaten something,’ he said. ‘I told her to take some Milk of Magnesia. Okay?’
‘Why not? It can’t do any harm. Listen, I think I’d better be getting home.’
‘Don’t be silly, it’s still early. Have another glass.’
‘No thanks.’
He poured himself another and bent down to kiss her.
She said, ‘Do you ever think of going to a concert or something?’
‘No. Why?’
‘It’s just that we do the same things most Sundays and now that I’m not in London—’
‘The same things? Don’t you like what we’re doing?’
‘Of course I do. But it’s just that I feel I’m missing things now. French movies and music and that kind of thing.’
‘French movies? Yuck.’
‘Some of them are good, darling. Very good.’
‘I like taking you to a restaurant then coming on here.’
‘Yes, I know.’
His face was beginning to tighten. He was a man who did not like to be challenged, she thought.
He said, ‘There’s something I meant to say. It’s about the money. I want you to stop the payments. It’s ridi—’
‘If you say that once more I’ll never see you again. We agreed. End of story. Now I really must go.’
This time he made no protest. While she was dressing she heard him on the phone again. This time his voice was brisk, peremptory. Business, she thought.
At home she decided to go to bed early. It had been a tiring week. Hilly was already asleep and her father was in his flat. The house was quiet. She leaned out of her window. There was a faint acrid smell of coal fires. Kingstown was silent.
She would have to do something about Clive. She couldn’t go on stringing him along forever. But WHY did he want to marry her? Was it because he feared the loneliness which he saw his mother experiencing?
For that matter so did Anne. But was it a good enough reason for marriage? He was in his forties, she just thirty. There was time . . . That’s what she always told herself.
And did she want to get married? Why share her life with someone she wasn’t sure of just for security? She had security. She had a job, a house, a daughter – indeed a family.
But Hilly would grow up and leave home. Her father would die. And then, when she was at her most vulnerable, there would be no one.
And didn’t Hilly really need a father?
Clive said he was fond of her and Hilly certainly liked him. But what if she married Clive and it didn’t work and they broke up? Wouldn’t that harm Hilly even more?
And anyway women were not supposed to need men any longer.
Oh?
She put on her dressing gown and went down to her father’s flat. He was puffing at his pipe and reading.
‘You all right?’ she said.
He made a gurgling sound which she took to be yes.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It wasn’t your fault. It was just that an old man had said something to me and then I didn’t see Hilly and I panicked.’
‘No, it was my fault. It’s . . . well, things have changed. When you were little I lost you twice. Once in a fruit market in Nairobi you wandered off and I went round calling your name and then a large black man brought you back to me on his shoulders.’
‘I remember that.’
‘The other time was in Maseru. I thought you were in the back of the truck and Watch and I drove off and we’d gone about twenty miles when we found you weren’t. So we drove back and you were playing in the street with a couple of little chaps. The point is that at no time was I worried that anything would happen to you. I knew I’d find you, that it was only a matter of time.’ He paused. ‘I realise that it doesn’t seem to work like that any more.’
‘No. It doesn’t. These days kids who wander off are sometimes never found again or if they are they’re dead. And women who break down in their cars – same thing.’
‘The time is out of joint,’ Henry said.
‘It is a bit. Goodnight.’
Chapter Ten
It was early in the afternoon. Tom Melville was at his desk going through a medical file, Anne was sitting next to him.
His room in the prison hospital was like a monk’s cell in its austerity, she thought. It was painted white, had an old scarred desk, an examination couch, and a bookcase with a mixture of textbooks and the odd blue paperback denoting serious sociological intent.
Her own room with its fresh green paint and sun-splashed walls, was infinitely preferable. Then she caught herself wondering, somewhat guiltily, if he had overspent on hers to the detriment of his.
There was a knock at the door. Les’s plump face appeared and he said, ‘Ready when you are, doc.’
‘Okay, wheel him in.’
The man who was ushered in was of medium height with long brown hair and small eyes. He had a shuffling walk and his whole demeanour was deferential. He stood at the vacant chair on the other side of the desk until Tom said, ‘Sit down, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Anne was concentrating hard. This was a case in which Melville was doing an evaluation prior to a psychiatrist coming from Loxton Special Hospital to see the prisoner. Tom had asked her to sit in.
‘Will
iam John Sweete,’ Tom said. ‘Is that what they call you – William?’
‘No, sir, Billy.’
‘Okay, fine. Do you know why I asked to see you, Billy?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I’ve got to make an assessment about your mental state. You’ve been assessed before, of course.’
‘Yes, sir. Last time, sir.’
‘So you know the ropes. You go back to court for remand, let’s see . . .’
‘Next week, sir.’
‘Have you been given a date for the court hearing?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Right. So . . . you’re charged with arson, same as last time.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And . . .’ he turned over the pages, ‘. . . and you were in Loxton for four years and a bit. Then you went to Middleton and from there you were released into the care of your grandmother. Is that right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It may be Loxton again, Billy. You realise that?’
‘They said Granton, sir.’
‘Who said?’
‘Police doctor, sir. When I was arrested.’
‘Yes, well . . . we’ll see about that. And there’s no need to call me sir all the time. Would you rather go to Granton?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a psychotherapy unit, sir. They help you there. In Loxton they never did nothing for you, sir. I mean they gave us drugs to shut us up but, well, I don’t think it did me any good, sir.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘I’m in the nick again, aren’t I, sir?’
Tom smiled. ‘You’ve got a point there. Okay, well, let’s take it from the beginning. Just pretend we know nothing about you.’ He turned to Anne. ‘Billy likes burning down things. Isn’t that so, Billy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Anne was remembering the old woman in the car park.
He burns things.
‘It’s mainly barns, isn’t it? Why barns?’
‘Burn nicely, sir. Usually full of hay or straw.’
‘When did you start?’
‘When I was fifteen, sir.’
‘But you weren’t caught for a long time, were you?’
‘When I was twenty, sir.’
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