A Sentence of Life

by Julian Gloag

  “Why in hell should I believe you? You’ve lied from first to last—”

  “Tom—”

  “—lied and then forgotten, deceived your lawyers with inanities and half-truths, done your best to—”

  “Tom. What you say is quite true. But I’m telling you the truth now.” It pained him, but he saw now what he had not seen before—that he would have to lie, even if it was only a lie about little matters of legal proof, in order to reveal the whole truth.

  “Alright. I’ll listen—but don’t expect me to believe, chum. The famous day in the country then—are you trying to tell me you had an affair with June? Laid her in the long grasses, is that it?”

  Jordan hesitated—he didn’t want to do this, so soon after the cleansing. But there was no other way. Slowly, he nodded his head.

  Then to his amazement, Tom broke out into a great guffaw.

  Jordan stared at the lawyer. What a strange animal he was.

  “Sorry, old man.” Tom wiped his lips. “Well well well well.” He lit a cigarette. “So you’re a bad lad after all.” He seemed to find the idea irresistibly amusing. “My dear Jordan, please don’t think I’m unsympathetic. Quite the contrary. I know only too well what goes on, only too well. What a mess. Hard to keep your hands off ’em though, isn’t it?”

  He thought of the last moment in the car, the dappled lamplight, the smell of warm tarmac and the motionless summer night. “Yes,” he said.

  “Well—no need to go into all that,” Tom said expansively. “I understand exactly what you feel. My God, old boy, you shouldn’t bottle it up, though. Bad thing.” He began to look a little less amused. “Particularly in our circumstances. I’m not blaming you, don’t think that. It must have been a blow when she was … no wonder it knocked all the stuffing out of you. Someone like you. No wonder … but all the same, I wish you’d owned up at the beginning. You really shouldn’t have lied like that, you know. Really not. Damn it. Damn it.” He sucked at his cigarette. “This is going to make things a bit awkward—Geoffrey’ll be upset. Still—it clears the air. We know where we are now. And I rather fancy the Crown’s shot its bolt. They’ll close on Monday. As it stands, we’ve got a fighting chance. Of course, in the state you’re in, there’s no question of your going in the witness box. Far too tricky. Awkward. Still …” He looked speculatively at Jordan. “Tell me, did you put the bun in her oven?”

  “Did I—what?”

  “Did you get her pregnant or was it the other chap? Or didn’t she tell you about him? No, of course, she wouldn’t have.”

  “Other chap?”

  “The fellow that bumped her off. Now think carefully about this, Jordan. Any information we can get about him is vital. Did she give you the slightest hint, eh?”

  “Give me one of your cigarettes, would you, Tom?” He hadn’t allowed for this—this total misunderstanding, disbelief. It was hateful, hateful that he should have to do this to June in death. It would soon be over though—he reached for the thought and held it. It wasn’t Tom’s fault, or anyone’s fault. The cigarette trembled between his fingers.

  “Yes,” he answered, “Yes, it was me.” And he was filled with an overwhelming pity for the child that had never been born, the dead little boy. His child, his boy. “Yes, Tom … I don’t want … I can’t …” He knew that in a moment he would weep, and he could not allow that to happen.

  “Of course, old man. I’m sorry—tasteless of me, I suppose. But, look, about this other chap—”

  Jordan pulled himself together. “There wasn’t any other chap. I murdered June.” That was better, the quaver in his voice had gone, and he felt at once stronger. This is what he had come here to say.

  “You can come off it now, Jordan.”

  Poor Tom, poor fool. “It’s true. I can’t say more than that.”

  “Damn!” As though he had missed a place kick, Tom took a deep breath. “Very well. Tell me then. Tell me what happened. Tell me how you murdered her. Every detail. Tell me what happened from the moment you rang the doorbell at Number Twenty-seven Panton Place.”

  Surely, they were the very words of Superintendent George? Jordan smiled faintly. He had come round to it at last. How much simpler if … if … but this was different. “I didn’t,” he said, “ring the bell. I let myself in with the key.” Sadly, but without a tremor, he related what had happened. The greeting, the loving, the killing, the flight. And, as he spoke, he felt his whole being eased. For it was, he realised, no real defilement of June. It was what she would have wanted, that they should be close like this, devoutly wished and, now, freely given.

  “I don’t believe a word of it.” Tom sat staring, a fat angry owl. “Not a word.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jordan.

  “Sorry? No, I’m sorry—sorry for you. You’re welcome to your opinion that you murdered Singer. You can believe you killed Thomas á Becket, for all I care. That’s not why I’m sorry for you. I’m sorry for you because you’re a pitiable creature who is blandly proposing to ruin the lives of others. Serenely, sanctimoniously sacrificing your wife, your daughter, your parents, Sutlif—”

  “My parents have been dead for many years.”

  “Yes, your father was a dipso—died in a lunatic asylum, didn’t he? And you’re doing a pretty good job of following in his footsteps.”

  Jordan was touched by a flicker of curiosity. “How did you know about my father?”

  “Common knowledge. I don’t know. Let’s stick to the point. So far, I’ve treated you as a supposedly responsible human being, but I think the time has come when we need the help of a head shrinker. There’s a chap called Blaydon. Wimpole Street. The quiet type, you’ll like him. I’m sure I’ll be able to get him in this afternoon. Will you consent to see him?”

  “I don’t think so, Tom.” Jordan shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t think I would. This is the end, Tom. Try to understand that. There is nothing you can do.”

  “Goddammit to hell—”

  “Tom. If you’d feel easier, you can leave the case, cease acting for me. There isn’t very much to be done now anyway.”

  “Drop the case? But what … what …?”

  “Perhaps it would be best all round. I’ll discharge you—is that the right word?—discharge you, if you like.”

  “I believe you’re serious. I do believe.” Tom sat motionless. “Look, let’s talk it over.”

  “No, no more talking, no.” He stood up.

  “Well, look.” Tom stood too. “Look, at least—I mean wait until you’ve seen Willy. She’s coming in this afternoon anyway. And Bartlett. You can’t just let them down, bang, like that. In all fairness. You’ve got to tell them yourself. You’ve got to hear Willy’s side of it. You see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, alright.” He wondered if perhaps Tom would not be glad to be rid of the case. He couldn’t blame him. “Alright, I’ll see the governor tomorrow, then. You’d better tell Bartlett to make it early tomorrow—before lunch.”

  “That’s splendid. Very wise. About this other thing—I won’t leave you in the lurch.”

  “You wouldn’t be doing that. It’s up to you. Whatever you do, I shan’t blame you.”

  Tom was silent for a moment. “I’ll get things moving. Ring Bartlett. We’re still investigating, you know.…”

  Jordan smiled. The first part of it, perhaps the worst, was over.

  “I’m—” Tom cleared his throat—“I’m still on your side, old man, remember that.”

  37

  She sat opposite him in the neat blue suit she always wore when going up to shop at Harrod’s. She was crisp and even and brittle. A tiny gold fillet in each ear, but no other decoration. She never wore the early Victorian pieces her mother gave her from time to time. She was soured on all things that gave pleasure to the eye by her mother’s inexhaustible and delighted instinct for the beautiful. Their house at Woodley was so ugly simply because, he had often thought, her mother’s small Georgian mansion at Cambridge was so perf
ect. And the gentle humour which had led Lady Benton, whose husband had briefly been ambassador to The Hague, to name her daughter Wilhelmina, was for Willy a source of unremitting disdain.

  Once he had given her a slim silver Scandinavian brooch, thinking the interdict might not apply there. She wore it occasionally so as not to hurt his feelings, but he knew she thought it mere modern rubbish. He saw, sadly, that she was wearing it today.

  “Georgia—Georgia sends you her love.” Her voice was hushed, as though the visitors’ room were a chapel.

  She looked so immaculate—and lifeless. Jordan would have liked to reach out and touch her shoulder with reassurance, but the flat, crosshatched wire between them prevented any contact.

  “Did Tom talk to you?” he said gently.

  She gave him a small, grim smile. “I didn’t really believe him. Poor man, he looked ghastly. But …”

  “I’m changing my plea to guilty, Willy.”

  “That’s what Tom said, I thought …” She hesitated. “It’s a sort of joke, isn’t it?”

  “No joke.”

  He knew her hands were clasped tight under the counter where he could not see them.

  “Darling. I know it’s been an awful strain for you. Perhaps it’s my fault that I haven’t—haven’t shown you I know that. But, darling, this isn’t making it any better for us, is it? I mean, please don’t—don’t. …” She looked down at her lap. “I know I’m not very sensitive, Jordan. And often I haven’t understood. Perhaps sometimes I haven’t tried hard enough to understand, but—”

  “Willy. I’m sorry. This has—well, it has nothing to do with you.”

  Her head jerked up. “How can you say that? Jordan, you’ve always been good and kind and gentle. Please don’t turn on me now with this—this thing. You don’t know how upsetting it is. I don’t care if it’s a joke or what it is—I don’t understand—but, please darling, don’t make it worse. It’ll all be over soon. Tom says they’ve got some new evidence and …” Her voice began to tremble.

  “I’m not turning on you, Willy.” God knows, he did not wish to hurt anybody else. “But this is something I have got to do. Nothing in my life has ever been more clear to me than this.”

  “I don’t understand!” she cried, so sharp the pacing prison officer behind her paused. “I don’t understand what you want to do. Why do you want to hurt me? What have I done wrong?”

  “Nothing—you have done nothing. I’ll try. I’ll try to make you understand.” He was aware of the enormous and fruitless effort—like describing the country to a child who’d never left her city street or seen a tree.

  “I want to understand, Jordan. I do. I want everything to be right for you when you come home. I want—”

  “Willy—I shan’t be coming home.”

  “Oh Jordan, please! What do you mean?”

  He hesitated. It would be utterly incomprehensible to her. The sweet-sharp painful truth—she would not, could not, believe it. She would think it was an excuse—an attack, masked with mumbo jumbo, mounted upon her. And she would be left still crying “Why? why?”—her wound kept open by bewilderment. It would be better to close it, give her a reason she could grasp, a drug she could take. But surely, surely it didn’t have to be this way. Again he felt his own clarity marred by necessary, trivial untruths. He looked round the barren savannah within him and, seeing the absolute aridity, knew that he would have to invent green fields and growing things in the distance behind him. There was no other way.

  “Willy, I was in love with June Singer.”

  “Jordan really! Lots of men have schoolboy crushes on their secretaries. For heaven’s sake, darling, I don’t blame you for that.”

  “I—I had an affair with her.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She leaned forward earnestly. “Lots of men do. Men are like that. I don’t blame you a bit. But don’t you see it doesn’t matter? Don’t you see it isn’t real any more—even if it was once? Oh darling, you can’t afford to take your dear old dreamy self seriously now, of all times. Poor Tom and Mr. Bartlett have their work cut out for them as it is, without you taking it into your head to …”

  He watched her through the wire screen. She was completely remote from him. She had always been remote of course—for all the years he had lived and bedded and boarded with her. The irremediable damage was that he could not touch her or move her except by hurting her.

  “Willy,” he said with terrible reluctance, “will you listen to me?”

  “Yes, darling. Of course. I’m listening. I promise not to interrupt.”

  “I’ll tell you then.” He could not swallow properly. “We were in love. For—for a long time I didn’t know it, didn’t realise it. Then last summer, when you and Georgia were away, I—June came down that day to Woodley. That’s when it started.” Like a horrible dream, what he was saying took possession of him.

  “For months it was difficult—we couldn’t see each other except in the office. And then June moved to Panton Place, when her mother died. It wasn’t easy even then, but we managed a few afternoons—and three or four nights when you stayed on at Sibley over the New Year. And we … Then, later, June discovered she was pregnant.” Suddenly he was no longer in control of the dream at all. “I wanted to marry her then. I wanted to leave you and marry her. But June wouldn’t have it. She was a good person, you’ve no idea how good a person she was. I tried to persuade her again and again. But she said she wouldn’t break up my marriage. It was Georgia she was thinking of more than anything else. She was an only child herself, you see, and her father died when she was very young. So she knew.… She refused, point-blank. She even refused to have the baby.” His voice quivered as he thrust back the tears. “She tried to bring on an abortion. And then—then she was going to leave me. It wasn’t I who wished her to go—it wasn’t like they think at all. I begged her to stay. But she wouldn’t. She was going to leave me. Don’t you see, I couldn’t stand that? What could I do? I had no alternative. I couldn’t let her go. I had to kill her. I loved her … I couldn’t let her leave me…”

  “You poor darling.”

  “What?” He was shaking all over. He blinked quickly. For a few moments he’d forgotten completely about Willy sitting opposite him.

  “You have been in a state. But you don’t have to do this for me. I don’t mind, darling, don’t you see I don’t mind? I know how you feel. You’ve been terribly hurt by all this. Of course you have, you …”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You dear, funny, tender thing. Don’t you think I know you after all these years of looking after you?”

  “You …” He was bewildered. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Does it really matter whether I believe you or not? You’ve never been strong, darling, but I’ve never minded that. I know it’s not you talking, darling.”

  “Who then … who is?”

  “It’s some terribly hurt, strained person. But you’ll be your old self again, darling, after the trial. We’ll go away and have a real holiday—together. Aunt Mary would love to look after Georgia, so we can be away as long as we like. We haven’t done that for ages, have we?” She smiled at him.

  It was all collapsing, all slipping away from him. He tried to struggle back. Poor Willy, she couldn’t conceive, couldn’t begin … He braced himself. “I murdered her, Willy. And I shall say so—I have to.”

  “Jordan, you’re not well. You’re nervous and overwrought, you must see—”

  He shook his head. He hated this. “No. I may be, yes—all those things. Mad is perhaps what you mean. Like my father, like Uncle John. Perhaps …” The mention of John brought him a moment of calm again. “But I’ve still got to do it. And they’ll believe me, you know. They’ll accept it because they have thought it all along. That I murdered June.”

  “But Jordan—even if you did kill her, I don’t care. If that’s what you want to think, I don’t care. But she’s dead. She’s dead! I’m not, I’m alive. Don�
�t I count?”

  “It won’t be as bad as you think. Willy, I bear you no malice. It’s outside all that—it’s nothing to do with you. I’m so—”

  “Nothing to do with me? I’m your wife, aren’t I? I’m the mother of your child. You vowed to love me and to cherish me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you at all?”

  “Yes, it means something.” He turned his head away. “But there’s something more important than that.”

  “Oh God, haven’t you any loyalty?”

  He looked back at her, unyielding. He said slowly, “If you love something, somebody—”

  “Love? And what do you love? What do you love?”

  “I—I don’t love you, Willy. I’m sorry. I was fond of you. I am fond of you—but I don’t love you.”

  “What then? What?”

  “The truth perhaps. Being true to something I’d forgotten all about, some part of me I deserted years ago. Or perhaps something I never really had.”

  “Annie. That Annie girl.”

  “What?”

  “That Annie girl with her imbecile sister. I’ve seen the moon eyes you make at her after church. You think you’re in love with her, don’t you?”

  “It’s much more than—”

  “A stupid schoolboy crush, and you want to break up our marriage and—and disgrace me and your whole family for a sloppy little—”

  “It’s more—”

  “Let me tell you something, Jordan.” Her face was hard. It was as if not flesh, but some unyielding substance, had been stretched across the bare bones and ruthlessly tightened. “You’re incapable of love. You don’t know what it means. You’re weak. Feeble and weak. You always have been and you always will be. I thought once I could make a man out of you. But you’re not a man. You’re nothing. You’re utterly contemptible.”

  He put his hand up to the grille between them. “Please stop this, Willy. I—”

  “No—it’s your turn to listen to me now. I hate you. I hate your stupid little schoolboy ways. I’ve hated you for years. I hated the way you couldn’t ever do anything for yourself. I hated the way you touched me as though I was made of bone china. I hated you for what you are—a weak, contemptible, useless thing!”