Chapter Twenty-Two
Arthur waited until the morning of the trial to change his plea to guilty. Innocence, guilt, what did they mean, nothing so black and white reigned within the labyrinthian complexities of Arthur’s reasoning. He was not interested in the judgement of his peers or anyone else; he could not be bothered with the petty processes of the law. His mother’s hand had guided him throughout life and his only foolishness had been in thinking he might throw it off. Mother knew best. Mother was the only person who’d ever had the right of authority over him. She was all he needed to please and he concluded that the small technicality of pleading guilty could be his way of protecting her, which was, after all, his purpose in life.
He remembered nothing of what had happened the night of the supposed rape so there was no remorse or shame. His only guilt was in selling the owl, oh, how he wished he had not been so wicked. He thought about it all the time and planned how he might get it back before Mother found out. It was important that he did nothing to upset her until he secured its return, nothing that might cause her to punish him.
He didn’t listen much to the short court hearing. Things were said about some other incident that had nothing to do with him. They spoke about someone who had killed his mother. Such a shocking thing! The judge wanted to know why this person had been allowed parole. He suggested an enquiry and Arthur thought this right and proper. People who killed their mothers should be executed.
Matron from the old ladies’ nursing home appeared in the witness box. Arthur gazed at her for a few moments, then he smiled and wanted to laugh. It was like the This is Your Life programme on television. He expected her to say, ‘I remember how, before he was famous . . .’ It was the nearest he came to identifying the proceedings to himself. What was happening in the courtroom was no more than hypothetical, as unlikely as the amusing little notion triggered by Matron’s unexpected re-appearance.
He didn’t hear what she really said, but the rest of the court listened with that particular shock and dismay reserved for social workers’ blunders as Matron explained how Arthur’s visits to the nursing home had been part of rehabilitation following release from prison.
‘It did seem rather odd – in view of what he’d done, but the residents all liked him. He had a way with them. I was quite taken in by him myself. I suppose I felt sorry for him. Of course, he’s not normal, not responsible for his actions. I always felt that.’
*
Mickey sat at the back of the court with Dan, who held her hand. A few seats from them was Emily who had greeted her outside with the excessive friendliness of embarrassment. Mickey had not seen her since the previous summer and that she was at the court hearing quite obviously owed more to ghoulish curiosity than friendship.
‘Haven’t I seen her before?’ Dan had murmured after she’d edged away from them.
‘At the wedding maybe.’
‘She seemed to know me.’
Mickey looked around, trying to contain her anxiety in the face of a dozen press reporters waiting with them for the case to begin. Everyone present recognized Dan.
‘You shouldn’t have come, not now you won’t be called as witness. This thing has damaged you enough already,’ she said against his ear.
But Dan did not care any more, at least, he thought not. His disillusionment was such that it no longer seemed important to maintain a reputation satisfactory to the members of his constituency party – those self-righteous, pre-judging people, obsequious enough when it suited them. He wasn’t really bitter, it was more a weariness with the whole business of politics and pleasing people, the pretence of it all. He’d tried explaining this to Mickey but it seemed he’d failed to convince her, and probably it had sounded too much like mollification.
Inside the courtroom he felt the tension in her hand and noted the lack of colour in her face. She’d lost so much weight that she had that slightly pathetic appearance caused by her clothes being too big. It came into his mind that he might go with her to America when all this business was over. He could take a holiday, go and see Vicky. He didn’t like the idea of her travelling alone, she seemed too vulnerable, but maybe this was only because of what he was now hearing, Mickey’s statement, read out in the detached tone of the legal voice. The strange little man in the dock never once looked round. He wasn’t really there. He’d retreated from reality in the way of the insane. Dan wondered what passed through his mind and how much he heard of the proceedings. But more strange than the man himself was Mickey’s having chosen him as a lover. She’d said little about the affair and despite the open court hearing it still seemed the most private of relationships and the bluntly sordid description of the rape somehow impertinently intrusive.
He would never ask her about it: his sensibility had always been stronger than any curiosity, and he felt she knew this and relied upon it. Their friendship was, he now realized, all that had any real meaning in his life. Vicky was his daughter but in a sense he felt he had lost her as much as he had Charlotte. How terrible it was to have lost those people essential to the family man.
Arthur was to be locked up indefinitely. He disappeared from public view, a person too twisted and damaged to be put right, only to be put away. Barely anything had been said about his background because Arthur was the only person that knew it, the only person aside from Mother, and as her protector he could not possible allow such intrusion into their lives.
Other people would not understand and it was unnecessary for them to do so. Arthur descended into the bowels of the court building with the heady sensation of being a worthy bastion against a misunderstanding world.
Mickey and Dan waited for the court to clear and although she knew it to be a forlorn hope, Mickey again scanned the faces, searching for David.
‘Come on, we’ll find somewhere quiet for lunch. Thank God it’s all over,’ Dan said.
‘Yes,’ she answered him, distractedly then, with an effort, she brought herself back to the immediate. ‘Yes, it’s all over,’ she said with a small smile.
Outside, the press were waiting, and with them, Emily. Dan refused to comment on the case but his seeming indifference to the bludgeoning questions fuelled further speculation: would he and Mrs Evans be getting married, the world wanted to know?
‘Mickey,’ Emily called, ‘Mickey,’ and with the squirrelling determination of the short-statured she managed to extract Mickey from the throng.
‘I expect you’re wondering why David didn’t come,’ she began and Mickey’s heart lifted because it sounded as if he had after all intended being there and perhaps Emily’s coming had been for a purpose other than nosiness.
‘He would have come, I’m sure of it, but Josephine went into labour last night and I expect he’s still at the hospital.’
Mickey looked at her with greater concentration.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘Josephine’s having the baby,’ Emily said, looking a little puzzled.
‘I didn’t know,’ Mickey murmured. ‘But, David . . .’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Emily said. ‘Have I put my foot in it? I assumed, we all did, that you must know. I mean, isn’t that partly the reason you and David . . . He said he wanted to be with you at the trial and we thought it was because you were still friends and Josephine said he should come. Oh Mickey, I’m so sorry, did you really not know?’
Mickey felt sick with confusion. She wished Emily would go away, that the small, gloating face emitting this false sorrow would somehow evaporate.
‘It’s alright, thank you for coming,’ she managed to say.
Emily seemed uncertain as to whether she should remain and discuss the matter further or make her escape. She made an agitated little twist on her small feet, like an impatient child.
‘You didn’t know then that they’re getting married as soon as David is . . .’ she hesitated, ‘as David is able to. I think he should have told you,’ she added indignantly.
Surely she would not say
any more.
Surely this was enough.
Dan joined them, at last extricating himself from the reporters. He greeted Emily and sensed straight away the presence of distress.
‘Do you want to leave?’ he asked Mickey in a low aside.
‘Please,’ she murmured.
‘Goodbye then,’ he said to Emily, taking Mickey’s arm.
He waited until they were in the car before asking if she was all right, knowing that something had happened, had been said.
She turned her face to him and he saw open grief.
‘Dan, I didn’t think it could get any worse.’ She gave out a hollow laugh, ‘but it has. David’s going to marry Josephine, which, of course, he should. She’s having a baby, you see, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of it.’ She ended with a bright smile which suddenly crumbled at the edges.
‘Oh God, I’m going to cry,’ she said, ‘and I don’t want to, not after all this time.’
‘I’ll take you home,’ Dan said, starting the car. It alarmed him that she was about to lose control, but he was also aware of that peculiar sense of privilege in being the person with whom she felt able to let go. It would be sentimental, even a little risky to indulge in such a display, but perhaps he needed a part of it for himself and it was this that caused the alarm.
His taking her home was to his house though she had not been there since the night of the rape, but neither of them was thinking about that particular ghost, not now.
‘Oh dear, here it comes,’ she said with a little gasp followed by a great wail she hardly recognized as coming from herself. She could say no more, only sob, covering her mouth with her hands.
They reached the house, its aspect changed by heavy new foliage on the surrounding trees and burgeoning creeper patterning the walls. It seemed to have little resemblance to the place from which she had fled the icy night Arthur had called.
Dan took her inside and in the hallway she collapsed into his arms. More than any one particular misery it was simply a huge dose of long-delayed shock, the combined horrors of the last few months with all the fear and violence, tension and guilt rolled into the shuddering sobs that she was unable to control. Dan held on to her and his own sense of defeat and disillusionment welled in his chest to the point of aching. He wanted the release of making love, the frenetic activity that could provide a moment of oblivion. He wondered whether it was possible they could do this thing, just the once and still retain that quality in their relationship hitherto unsullied by sex. He removed his arms from her waist and back and put them against her shoulders, pushing her from him. He looked into her face.
‘Mickey,’ he said, his voice sounded thick. ‘Do you want to make love.’
The search for comfort passed between them. She held his gaze a moment longer then pressed herself into his chest.
In bed the sense of frenzy went away and their lovemaking took on the thoughtful care of mutual affection. Each paid attention to detail as if they were both aware that this was a once and only happening, an expedient, but something that could be made special for this one occasion. They were not ‘in love’ but loved one another well enough to employ the pleasure-giving skills to satisfy the moment. ‘Why not?’ both asked within the places of their minds that still stood back, and although they knew the answer chose to disregard the absence of what each had perhaps hoped might be there.
When it was over they lay still and quiet, side by side, on their backs, ‘if only’ thoughts divided between them in equal measure, but with a new calm neither might have fully expected.
‘Do you think we’ve been foolish?’ Mickey said, at last.
‘I think that maybe we had to find out,’ Dan answered her. ‘Everything else between us has worked so well.’
‘Well enough that we don’t have to pretend now?’ she said.
He turned to face her.
‘Well enough,’ he said, gently.
‘Dan,’ she hesitated, ‘I wish it could be different. It would make sense, wouldn’t it?
‘It would be perfect.’
‘Perhaps we could try?’ she said with a sort of sorrowful hope. ‘In time.’
‘Perhaps,’ he answered, his hand closing round her fingers under the bedclothes.
They were silent for a while then she asked whether things would be all right for him now that the court case was over.
‘You won’t have to resign now, will you? That worried me more than anything, that it might have ruined your career in politics.’
‘I’m not sure I want to carry on,’ he said.
‘But you must!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re so good at it.’
‘Dear Mickey,’ he said with gratitude. ‘Do you know, there’s no one else who would say that.’
‘But you are,’ she insisted.
‘Oh, I’m not trying to be over-modest. What I meant was that there’s no one who’d think to say it. Whatever I decide, and the decision may still not be mine, I thought I might take a holiday first, perhaps go and see Vicky.’
‘You miss her, don’t you?’
‘Very much, I miss having a family.’
At that moment she wished it was within her power to provide him with this, to restore him to the status of family man. He was so very nice, and in a way she loved him.
Perhaps he thought he saw pity in her expression, whatever it was he decided against suggesting that they travel to America together, the idea he’d had earlier.
‘I won’t do anything immediately,’ he said. ‘I’ll just see what happens for the time being and perhaps I’ll make the trip later in the year, combine seeing Vicky with checking up on you,’ he added, disguising with a hint of authority what was a sort of question.
‘You still want me to go?’ she said.
‘It will be good for you, and besides, there’s no one else.’
‘Oh that’s great!’ she retorted.
‘Mickey, you’re the best person for the job.’ He smiled as he said this then he became serious again, just briefly. ‘And it will give us the space we need, time without having to make a decision.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mickey’s going to America was to be sooner than she’d anticipated, only ten days later. The business in New York had become more urgent and she found herself suddenly caught up in all the arrangements that had to be made for what would be a fairly lengthy stay.
It was as well that her time and energy be so taken up: there were all the other thoughts to have but practicality forced them into abeyance, and the despair she might have felt was overtaken by a sense of expectation in the unknown possibilities of another place.
During these last days in England she stayed at her parents’ home. She fought a battle with her mother who wanted to throw a ‘going away’ party, if only to prove to the neighbours and the Aga Brigade that her elder daughter was not running away in shame. There would be no party. Molly sighed peevishly and continued to look hurt for a couple of days, but the storm blew over and became a drizzle as she switched her emotion to something approaching bereavement.
‘I’ll probably never see you again. You’ll make a new life for yourself over there and you won’t want to come back!’ she said, in a mood to feel sorry for herself.
‘I don’t suppose I will,’ Mickey protested, though the possibility had entered her mind and perhaps because of this she added: ‘And even if I did, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t come over and visit!’
‘There you are! I knew it!’ Molly exclaimed, threatening tears. She seemed on the verge of weeping most of the time and Mickey was not unaware that this was largely a symptom of relief; the weeks prior to the court case had been an enormous strain for everyone.
Mickey noticed that her mother now avoided very deliberately any mention of David and although nothing had been said she had the impression that Molly knew.
The Walrus stayed out of their way. He seemed to be living at the factory, avoiding the embarrassment of his wife’s emotion.
When he did appear, it was only to eat and grunt, though during the one Sunday that cropped up in the ten days he ventured to have a rant about his unspeakable son, but even this unexceptional event seemed tinged with the general falsehood that prevailed in the house. Nobody would speak their mind, not really, and Mickey couldn’t wait to escape, to distance herself from the insidious tyranny of family, partly self-inflicted but conditioned into her being by the same genes that had coloured her hair and shaped her eyes. The need to get away, too, was as strongly counterbalanced by a desire to be included.
Two days before her departure, with the arrangements almost complete, she descended into a sudden feeling of remorse over Arthur, the only one of them with no future. The feeling intensified and by the end of the day she had discovered where he’d been sent. The following day she rose early and made the long journey to the prison. Inmates were not normally allowed a visit so soon, but she explained that she was going to America and might not be back in the UK for some time.
The prison governor, a ruddy-complexioned man in his late fifties, studied her as she spoke, weighing up the situation. Three Eight Seven was under assessment but would almost certainly end up in Rampton. The criminally insane did not get many visitors and Three Eight Seven, with no living relatives, would probably have none as the years went by. Accordingly, Mickey was allowed to see Arthur. Weighty doors were unlocked and she passed into a small room divided in half by a metal grille.
After a few minutes alone, she saw the door in the other half of the room open and the so small figure of Arthur came through.
Her heart began to pound as he approached, reviving in her the sense of fear that came from being with him and at the mercy of his searching perception, a far deeper and more disturbing fear than that of physical fright. He sat down on the single chair that faced the grille. He had said nothing, shown no surprise at her being there, though she couldn’t see his eyes: the strange, unnatural light of the windowless room fell against the thick lenses of his spectacles, obliterating what was behind.
Not Playing the Game Page 21
