by Vicary, Tim
She had her little blue jacket but not a coat, and it was dark and cold in the street. She shivered, but he did not put his jacket round her as she had hoped. They set off, walking quickly towards the river and the Tower.
‘I told you, I haven't got a place here. Only a filthy men's lodgings which I'd be ashamed to let you see.’
‘But you're the father, James! You've got to help. There's no one else!’
They stopped under a gas lamp by the walls of the Tower of London. Fifty yards to their right, the black waters of the Thames flowed dark and silently downstream. The gas lamp hissed above their heads, the wind blew cold around them. Deborah looked up into his face and saw not love or compassion but fear, anger, irritation.
‘How can I help, woman? Think now for a minute, will you! We discussed all this in Dublin, and you said you wanted to leave me then.’
‘Yes, but then I didn't know . . .’
‘You understand the laws of nature — you knew it was possible, surely! But it's not just the laws of nature you have to understand, it's the laws of society. You're a different class to me, Deborah. You could never live as I do. If you left your husband and came to me you'd lose all your money, your house, your son — and you'd live in one room with no carpets, and spend your day scrubbing cockroaches out of the bed. You couldn't do it, woman! And, even if you could, I wouldn't want you to. If that's my son in your belly I'd rather he grew up rich, with a decent house, warm clothes, and a good education, not shivering in a slum as I did! And another thing . . .’
‘No more, James, please!’ She stared at him stunned, shaking. But he wasn't listening to her. Perhaps he never had.
‘If I took in a woman like you, my work in the union would be over. Half the workers in the union would call me a fornicator and throw me out, especially the Catholic Irish. Look what happened to Parnell!’
‘James, you're not Parnell, nor anything like him!’ She turned to walk away from him, towards the river, but he snatched her arm and held her back.
‘No, but the principle's the same. Anyway, Deborah, I know it sounds harsh, but what I'm telling you is for the best in the long run, believe me! Go back to Glenfee, go back to your husband and make him sleep with you — you can do that surely, a pretty woman like you? Then he'll think the child is his and bring it up with a silver spoon in its mouth, and maybe I'll come over and see it some time. And we can meet . . .’
‘Why should we want to meet?’
The words, to her, sounded bleak, cold as the unfeeling black river flowing silently past the embankment. To him, too, they sounded strange. He stopped for a moment, puzzled.
‘Why? Well, for old times' sake, of course. And if your husband is as bad as you say . . . I thought you loved me.’
‘I thought so too, once, James Rankin.’ It was hard to get the words up, she was so choked with the tears that would have to come, soon, when she left him. But first — a vast flow of anger began to surge through her.
‘I don't think you know the meaning of the word love, really, James, do you? It was all lust with you, wasn't it — fornication, as your union colleagues would say! And they'd be right, too, if they said it now, when you won't take me in. Because the difference between love and lust is whether you care for the other person, and the results of the time you spend together in bed! You don't give a fig for that, do you — not even for your own child!’
She snatched her arms out of his, and went away, half-walking, half-running, along the embankment, feeling the tears well up inside her. A policeman stopped and watched her go, but did nothing. After fifty yards she turned once and looked back, hoping perhaps that even now Rankin would change his mind and come after her. But he had not moved. He was still there, with his flat cap and warm jacket, under the gas light, watching. He had his hands in his pockets. The green silk scarf, which she had adjusted so maternally earlier when they had met, was fluttering loose in the cold wind.
They watched each other for a long, cold moment.
Then, very deliberately, he turned, hands still in his pockets, and walked slowly away . . .
16
FINGERS. DRUMMING on the desk. Thick, strong fingers with virile black hair growing on the backs of them. Fingers that were stronger than most men's, twice as large as any woman's. Martin Armstrong remembered how he had once bent back the fingers of a cheeky little whore who had dared to argue with him. It had been so easy. He had used perhaps a quarter of his strength, and almost at once her sinews had cracked and she had screamed with pain and agreed to do what he asked. He remembered how, afterwards, she had shuddered in terror as his powerful hands kneaded her breasts — his groin warmed at the thought of it.
Now those same fingers drummed irritably on the desk in front of him, for once he wished they were smooth, soft, well-manicured, hairless like most men's.
My trouble comes from too much respectability, he thought. That, and greed.
He had come from a family with little money and had studied hard to become a doctor. He had never been very successful in his profession. Although he had a private practice in Kensington he had few patients. So he had been forced to take a second post as Assistant Medical Officer in Holloway Prison. And here he had come into contact with prostitutes. And then he had hit upon the idea of opening a second, smaller surgery in Hackney, and specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases. For the first time in his life, he had begun to make money.
He studied the market and discovered two things. Firstly, that the pimps and bawds — those who made the contacts and provided the premises — often made more money than the girls themselves. And secondly, that some men had distinctly peculiar tastes.
He began to make use of both of these pieces of knowledge.
Firstly, he made introductions. Men — sometimes patients, sometimes respectable married men whom he met in his club or through his wife — were secretly eager to meet the better class of whore but did not know how to go about it. For a price, Martin helped them. For a higher price, he made contacts for those who had unusual tastes. Bondage. Sado-masochism. The seduction of virgins.
The desire for the last of these seemed to be confined largely to middle-aged men. It did not appeal particularly to Martin, but it was highly profitable — and a stroke of luck made him well-placed to supply the demand. He had recently been appointed Medical Officer to a number of charitable children's hostels. The children in these places were there either because they had been abandoned by their parents; because they had run away from home; or, in some cases, because their parents were in prison. The girls were, therefore, from immoral backgrounds in the first place, and almost certain to lose their virginity before they knew they had it.
But they had something unique to sell, and Martin knew men who wanted to buy it. So a deal was struck, and everyone profited.
It all depended, Martin thought, on the gap between respectability and desire. Respectable women, it seemed to him, were unable to satisfy men's sexual desire, and normally felt none of their own. Less respectable women — those from the backstreets, the gutter, servant girls, the criminal classes — apparently could, and did. It was strange, but true. There was something about respectability that created a demand for prostitution.
And since respectable men had money, those who met that demand could grow rich.
Martin had calculated that in a year, if all went well, he would be able to give up his post in the prison entirely. In two years like this, he thought, he would earn more than in ten years of respectable employment. In five years he might be rich enough to retire to the South of France...
Greed, however, made him take risks. It had been tempting, but foolish, to take the expensive flats above his consulting rooms and use them to supply very rich, highly respectable customers. Men like Jonathan Becket, MP. But then, very respectable clients needed discreet and apparently respectable premises. How was he to know that the wretched man's suffragette wife was to come snooping outside?
Martin drummed
his fingers on the desk again in frustration. The whole thing was a nightmare. Suffragettes, in his opinion, were the enemy of male freedom. They were the army of female respectability. They were puritans — they wanted all women to be respectable, frigid, and all men to be chaste, too. Christabel Pankhurst had said so, in a dreadful pamphlet she had written called The Great Scourge. Prostitution led to venereal disease, she said — over two thirds of all men contracted these diseases at one time or another. It was a war waged by men against women. The only solution was chastity for men, as well as women. Prostitution, lust, infidelity must be stamped out.
Martin had read the pamphlet with fascinated horror. If these women got their way, his livelihood would be destroyed. It was true that venereal disease was widespread — he was a specialist in treating it. It was also true, in his opinion, that men needed sexual freedom precisely because respectable women were unable to satisfy them. In that case, men should stand up for their rights. It was feeble liberals, like Jonathan Becket, whom he most despised. The man had once voted for women's suffrage in Parliament, and yet he was happy to use the services of a whore. Not only that, but he had come to Martin to plead for special treatment for his suffragette wife.
The woman who would destroy them both, if she were set free . . . Out of self-righteousness and jealousy, nothing more.
Martin drummed his fingers on the desk and tried to think clearly. What were his options?
It all depends how long I can keep her in prison, he thought. Out of touch with her husband. And how much she really knows.
Last time he had spoken to her he had been too shocked and angry to interrogate her carefully. He had been hugely embarrassed that a wardress had heard what she had said. Well, he would have to deal with that. But first I have to talk to Sarah Becket on my own, he thought.
Without the wardress being present.
The fingers on the desk stopped drumming. He sighed, pushed back his leather chair, and walked grimly towards the door . . .
‘Good morning, Mrs Becket.’
‘What? Oh no, not you! Get out, please. Leave me alone!’
She was shocked, as Martin had expected, but at least she did not scream. That was a good sign. She had been sitting hunched at one end of her bed, shivering in the coarse serge prison dress with the arrows on it. Her hair was neatly combed but her face was pale, drawn. Shivering, he knew, was one of the consequences of starvation and inactivity.
He sat down on the end of the bed, as far away from her as the cell allowed. I must try not to get her hysterical, he thought. If it is possible to have a rational conversation with this woman, that is what I want. He leant forward, folding his hands between his knees, and forced a smile.
‘I haven't come to hurt you.’
‘Oh no? What about last night?’
‘That was the medical treatment. I warned you about it. So long as you continue to starve yourself it has to be applied.’
It had been a grim business all the same. When he had come back to force feed her the wardresses had been, it seemed to him, unusually reluctant, and Sarah had screamed and tried to claw his face. Afterwards, she had vomited up almost as much as he had poured into her stomach so the whole thing had been pointless, except as punishment.
‘Treatment!’ she said. ‘You're a torturer. You live in the Middle Ages.’
Martin tried to keep the smile on his face. ‘It is that I have come to see you about. None of us like having to treat prisoners like that. If you would only co-operate it wouldn't be necessary.’
‘Co-operate? With you?’ Sarah tried to laugh, but her throat hurt too much where the tube had rubbed it raw. Instead she stood up and turned to face the wall, with her back to him.
Martin sighed. He felt an urge to seize the silly woman and shake her until her teeth rattled, but that would do no good. He said, as reasonably as he could: ‘If you would eat, you wouldn't have to be fed.’
‘If men would treat women as human beings, I wouldn't need to be in here at all!’
This was not what Martin had come to talk about. He waited for a moment, collecting his thoughts. There was a clatter outside in the corridor as a wardress went past with a trolley.
‘Yesterday, Mrs Becket, you made a number of accusations against me. I have come to talk about those.’
Silence. She did not turn round.
‘In the first place, you appear to believe I keep a — what is the word? — a brothel in the flats above my consulting rooms. Is that right? Did I understand you correctly?’
She turned round to face him. Arms folded, she leaned against the wall under the high barred window. Her hair was hidden under the regulation mob cap and there was a mocking, sardonic smile on her bruised lips.
‘You understand perfectly, Dr Armstrong, because it's true.’
‘And what proof do you imagine you have?’
‘I saw my husband go into your consulting rooms and stay there when you came out. Later, I saw another man go in with a prostitute on his arm.’
Martin laughed. It was a fairly good effort, he thought. He hoped it shook her confidence.
‘Then you did not understand what you saw. Whatever woman went into the flats she could not have been a prostitute. And your husband often stays behind after I have left. He receives . . . therapy and medical advice from a young colleague of mine.’
‘For three hours?’
Sarah watched Dr Armstrong's eyes and saw a shadow of fear flicker in them. In fact she had no idea how long she had waited outside the consulting rooms. It might have been three hours, or one, or five. The pain of the discovery had made it seem interminable. But Martin did not know how long she had been there, either.
‘The place also has a back door. Perhaps he left by that.’
‘I shall ask him then, when I get out. Jonathan is an even worse liar than you are.’
Martin coughed, awkwardly, and his hands squeezed each other between his knees. He wanted to slap the wretched woman's face but it would not do. The point of this interview was to gather information, not lose his temper.
‘Please do. Ask him whatever you like. Though you will have to wait a while, I fear. But you made another accusation, a rather worse one. You seem to believe that I own yet more houses of ill repute. In different areas. What possible proof can you have of that?’
Annoyance flitted across Sarah's face. The women in the collecting cell; they would probably deny everything, even if I could find them — I never knew their names. The only other real proof I have is the letter warning me to stay away from Dr Armstrong because even my husband visited his prostitutes. I stuffed it into the back of my desk, but it's no use telling this man that. For all I know he might tell Jonathan to get it out and burn it. Oh Jonathan, Jonathan! How could you?
She confronted the smug ugly slob of a man in front of her — Jonathan's friend! — and said: ‘I'm not going to tell you what proof I have. You can wait and find out later. But I know it's not just ordinary prostitutes you rent those rooms to. You take children there too, don't you? Little girls thirteen or fourteen years old, for men to deflower. You make me ill!’
Martin stood up. The strain of sitting quietly was too much for him. Sarah saw the big, hairy hands flexing by his sides and flinched. But he did not touch her.
With an effort, he kept his voice calm. ‘You have no proof because these things don't happen. You are suffering from a mental delusion. But, just out of interest, Mrs Becket, let us pursue this line a little further. When you have completed your six months' sentence in here . . .’
‘I shall be out before that!’
‘. . . what do you propose to do with this supposed information about my activities?’
It was the crucial question. Sarah savoured it. For the first time in Holloway, she felt that the balance of power had swung in her direction. She said, sweetly: ‘You will just have to wait and see, won't you, Dr Armstrong? But I imagine that the press will be interested. And the police too, perhaps. Doctors who abus
e women and young girls do not usually rise to the summit of their profession, do they?’
‘And your husband, Mrs Becket? Will you drag him down in the mire as well? His reputation and career will be ruined, if you make these accusations. Even if they are untrue.’
Sarah's sense of triumph faded. Rage flared in its place. Jonathan did this! He betrayed me — he sent this man here to taunt me. On his own head be it! Beneath the rage burned a grim, hard determination. I owe this to all women — the children, the young women who are exploited, the suffragettes who are tortured in here with me. Whatever the consequences, this man is evil. I have to expose him!
‘My husband can look after himself. My concern is the rights of women, Dr Armstrong.’
Martin stared at her impotently. Such a slender, pale creature in the drab shapeless prison dress. The cheekbones seemed unnaturally high in the sunken hungry face, the eyes unusually bright. A martyr, he thought, with that cut-glass high society accent of frigid respectability. No wonder Jonathan Becket had to go to a whore; her thighs must be sharp as razors!
With an effort, he raised an eyebrow superciliously.
‘In that case, you will make fools of both him and yourself, Mrs Becket, when you discover that your accusations are untrue. But in the meantime, if you will not eat, I regret that your treatment for self-inflicted starvation must continue.’
The fear in her eyes pleased him. He turned to open the door. And to avoid too many more kicking and screaming matches like we had last night, he thought, the woman had better be drugged. I will feed her a measure of bromide tonight, before her meal. That way, she'll keep more of it down.
He strode away along the corridor, smiling grimly to himself. From what Sarah Becket had said, he didn't believe she had much proof. It was a nuisance, but long before she was released from Holloway, he would have closed all the flats down and moved the girls on to other, more secret premises. If the police raided the addresses she knew of, they would find nothing.
