by David Nobbs
And so, very gradually, in the middle distance of his head, he began to remember. But married? Him, married? That was the rock on which his memories broke in vain. Many years ago there had almost been a Miss Wilkinson. A few weeks ago there had been times when he thought there might be a Mrs Pollard, if he wasn’t careful. In between there had been no question of there being anybody. He had never come anywhere near to being married. Nowhere near it. And now they came along with this woman, this Esme Simpson. They exhibited her before him in court, and he felt no flicker of recognition. If he had married her it must have caused some violent reaction in him, for him to forget it like this. But then something pretty violent must have been necessary to get him married in the first place, so alien to his life did it seem. So perhaps it was not surprising that he should recall none of it, and that it should have ended in such complete estrangement.
Nevertheless it was necessary for him to try and recall it, if he was to come to terms with his situation. And in the end he did. Had they been married in a registry office? Had they tied an old boot to her bottom? He seemed to recall something of the sort. It was vague, and it comforted him, but it led to further memories that were not vague, and did not comfort him. Failures, inadequacies, arguments and moments of bitter silence. Disgust, nausea, and a desire for unattainable freedom. Petty, mortifying scenes. He recalled insults that had been hurled at him, to which there had been no reply. And he recalled the final squabble.
There had been some trouble on a bombed site, some sort of scuffle. Esme was sitting on an old block of stone and shouting at him. Someone swore and threw a stone. It rang out against a tin as it fell. The ripple of sound fanned out through the silence, and in the silence, somewhere to the left, a woman laughed harshly. The laugh rang out very clear on the cold night air. Gertrude Walsh!
So that was what he had done. He had wilfully, maliciously and without authority uttered obscene documents and melodies. He had wilfully and with malice aforethought parked his wife, Esme Simpson, upon a bombed site, contrary to the Spouse Protection Act of 1623. He had wilfully and maliciously kidnapped with intent one Gertrude Walsh—and no man would ever kidnap two Gertrude Walshes. He had behaved throughout the whole ghastly business in a manner liable to cause a breach of promise.
We all have a great deal to learn about ourselves, and the process is often a difficult one, but Simpson had more to learn about himself than anyone, and for him the process was particularly difficult. His whole upbringing, from the name tapes to the battle of Trafalgar, had fostered the belief that he was “all right really”. Timid and feeble he might be, frightened of rugger he undoubtedly was, but he wasn’t completely bad. He wasn’t a Frenchman or a gypsy or anything like that. And he had a knowledge of himself too—a knowledge uniquely his—a sight of a beautiful soul that nobody else could see. Now, for the first time all this was in doubt. Now, for the first time, he had to face up to the possibility that he was bad, utterly bad.
His immediate reaction was a grotesque shame, shame not at what he had done, not at anything Mrs Pollard might think when she found out about it all, but shame that he had let Mr Anning down. Every week in the scouts—where he had not stayed long, having been an abysmal failure, and utterly miserable—they had each done, or tried to do, a good turn. The only week when they did not do a good turn was Bob-A-Job Week, when turns cost money. Every other week they tried to do a good turn, and one week they had all been out in the woods, baking potatoes in their jackets on a boiling hot day and generally having wonderful fun, and Millington’s potato had got burnt to a cinder, and Millington had blubbered. He gave his potato to Millington, as his good turn, and Millington gave it back to him, as his good turn, and Mr Anning, laying a firm hand on their shoulders, had said, as his good turn: “I’m proud of you both.” Words had stuck in their throats then. What would Mr Anning say about this? What would Millington, doubtless a bishop by now, say? The absurd shame welled up inside him, and the nearest he could get to ridiculing himself for it was a sad little smile to the walls of his cell.
After a while the shame began to give way before a slow trickle of guilt. The guilt began to grow into a flood, and with it came joy. He would mortify himself, and if he didn’t the warders would do it for him. Then he would be purged, he would be renewed, his soul would be beautiful again, deep down.
It was at this moment that he was given the special privilege of being transferred to Renstock Model Prison, on the South Downs. Here they gave him things to do—books to read, tasks to perform, social activities to engage in. He was encouraged to do some painting. He was allowed to wander in the charming grounds in which the light, airy Scandinavian-style buildings were discreetly, even elegantly, set. He was taken to the prison’s accommodation agency, “Share A Cell Ltd.”, and encouraged to answer questions about his habits and hobbies, so that he could share his rehabilitation with suitable companions, and the benevolent organisers were livid when he explained that he wanted to be on his own. They made him share a hut with a literary counterfeit expert and with Millington, who had been living off the earnings of prostitution. He had virtually none of the discomforts and absolutely none of the privacy which were essential if he was to achieve any real success. The days passed in an appalling atmosphere of synthetic good-will and Simpson, at his lowest ebb, took no interest in the varied and thoroughly regenerative meals provided by the prison’s progressive dietician or in the series of lovely sunsets which hung over the Sussex downs each evening.
One day, when he was judged to have fully settled in, he was summoned for an interview with the Governor.
“You’ve had a chance to settle in here, Simpson,” said the Governor.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ever done any acting?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Be all the more effective. Take you out of yourself.”
“That’s just what I…”
“I know what you’re going to say. Well, you’re quite right. But in acting the part of someone else you find yourself. We do a little play every three months. We’ve just done Hamlet. Not a great success. Ophelia got a remission for good conduct on the day of the dress rehearsal. The chaplain did a rush job on the play, rewrote it without her in it, but it wasn’t the same. Our next play is to be Dear Octopus. Not ideal for an all-male cast, perhaps, but…”
“I don’t want to act, sir.”
“It’s the things that we don’t want to do that it is often best for us to do. Man is his own worst doctor.”
“It won’t help me to act, sir.”
“We want you to feel part of the community here, Simpson. We want to make you feel wanted.”
“I am wanted here. But I don’t want to be here, sir.”
“Don’t you like my prison?”
“It’s very nice.”
“Scandinavian style.”
“It’s very nice, sir. But I…I want to go back.”
“You must serve your sentence.”
“I want to go back to the other prison.”
“What?”
“I have done wrong. I want to pay for it.”
“We must all pay for our sins.”
“I want to suffer.”
“Real suffering is the suffering you don’t choose, Simpson. If you really want to suffer we can arrange it here.”
The Governor was as good as his word. Simpson was co-erced into every progressive, regenerative and rehabilitative scheme in the place, with disastrous effect. It was not that he attempted to sabotage these schemes. It was just that his complete lack of enthusiasm slowly pervaded his colleagues. Dear Octopus was even more of a disaster than Hamlet, the meetings of the Friends of Iago drew record low attendances, and a reading of Paradise Lost developed into the first riot ever to occur in a progressive British prison. It was not much of a riot, in fact, it was little more than a high-spirited expression of boredom, but by the time a con-man who was serving a five-year sentence crept out at dead of night and telephoned it to ever
y paper in Fleet Street it was very much of a riot. The Governor was on the carpet, but he felt that if he had a scapegoat he might be able to get at least one foot off the carpet. Simpson was always the first goat to be scaped in any gathering, and often with a good deal less justice than on this occasion, so that it was no surprise to him when he got his wish and found himself all alone again in his dark, dripping cell.
Six months of his sentence still remained, and at first he enjoyed his mortification. Life in prison had a steady routine which pleased him, and interruptions were few. Three times a day, at 7.22, 1.16 and 6.58, a man brought him a meal of bread and stew, which he watered down with a chipped brown mug of hot buttered tea. He was a big man, and he had, as was only fair, a big face, this man who brought him his meals. Sometimes he smiled and sometimes he frowned, and every now and then he delivered a hearty kick. Usually he smiled. On the 10th he smiled three times. On the 11th he frowned at 7.22 and 1.16, but at 6.58 he smiled. On the 12th he smiled three times and at 1.16 he delivered a hearty kick. That was about his norm.
On Mondays they brought him a silver trolley known as “The Library.” On it there were a number of Bibles and old-fashioned novels, and one or two pamphlets with titles like: How to make your spare time essential, Thirty decorative uses for tin foil, The fight against Metropolitan crime and Family Planning—Is it man’s Waterloo? He was allowed one novel and one Bible every week, but after the first week he only bothered with the novel, as he found that the plots of the Bibles were all the same.
Once a week the chaplain visited him. He was a tall man with round shoulders and a convex face, and when he laughed his eyes seemed totally impervious to the merriment that was going on all round them. Simpson did not like him. These visits apart, he had himself to himself. Once a day he had to walk round the courtyard in his underclothes—a whim of the Governor, who believed in physical fitness—and from time to time he would be asked to make a bucket or two. This he quite enjoyed. The mechanical activity gave his mind ever greater freedom in which to enjoy his mortification.
Gradually, however, a dreadful thing began to happen. He became bored with his mortification, and even grew to hate it. He had had quite adequate guilt feelings, felt thoroughly purged, and yet had made no progress whatever towards the universal panacea for all mankind. This search into himself, he was beginning to realise, was not at all the way in which to find it. It could only be found through action, and action which involved relationships with other people, of that he became convinced. And once he knew that he grew impatient to be out. The days began to seem interminable, and now there was no consolation to be had. Even his buckets were not a success, springing mysterious leaks after a few hours. His morale became extremely low, and had he not caught double pneumonia as a result of walking round the courtyard in his underclothes it is doubtful whether he could have borne those last months. To give way to illness was a luxury, and by the time he was sufficiently recovered to regain his full identity not more than two months of his captivity remained.
These months he spent groaning, and eating, and even once or twice beating his head against the walls. Often he would think of Mrs Pollard, and wonder what, if anything, had become of her. Why had she not come to see him? Even now, as he thought of her, she was somewhere, she was occupying a given moment in time and space, the same moment in time as him, but an utterly different space, where she was actually engaged on some activity, however trivial. She could at least have thought of leaving it for a while and visiting him. He wondered whether she even knew what had happened to him, whether she had made any enquiries, whether she cared.
If only she was still alive, he felt sure that he could win her. It was what he wanted, he felt sure of that now, and he had the added spur of knowing that it was in relationships of that kind that the panacea was to be sought. He would adopt an entirely new policy towards her and sweep her off her feet, so long as she was still alive.
Awake. Asleep. Awake. Asleep. Eating. Not eating. So it went on, and the days passed. At first the passing of the days afforded a slight relief to his pain, but gradually, as only a month, then three weeks, then a fortnight remained, the greater his agony became. The period between 7.22 and 1.16, and between 1.16 and 6.58, grew longer and longer, and the uneasy half-world between sleep and wakefulness which stretched from 6.58 until 7.22 the next morning was a continuous nightmare. By the time only one day remained the tension had become so great that he felt that he could bear it no longer, that it would be impossible for him to survive for twenty four more hours. And a new fear came over him, a fear that he would do something dreadful before the day was out, and would lose his remission for good conduct.
Twenty-three hours. Twenty-two. Twenty-one. The pressure had grown no greater, and he began to feel that he would pull through. Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. He was certain of it. A sudden lightness entered his body, and for a few seconds he felt astonishingly peaceful and astonishingly powerful. Then the joy was gone, and he no longer cared. There was no desire any more, just flatness, as far as the mind could see.
The night came, and he slept. The dawn came, and he awoke. The day came, and he ate the breakfast that was put before him. He allowed himself to be given his possessions. He changed into his clothes, though he no longer recognised them as his own. He was led down a long stone corridor, and at the end there was a door. The door was opened, and he found himself in the street. The door was closed behind him. The sun was shining brightly on the frozen snow.
Chapter 17
THERE, WAITING OUTSIDE A NEWSAGENT’S, WAS MR BURBAGE. He came forward with a delighted smile on his face and they shook hands.
“Well,” said Mr Burbage. “You haven’t forgotten, have you? You’re coming drinking with me tonight, at the Turton Arms, to celebrate. There’ll be artists, but we needn’t listen to them.”
Simpson did not care whether he went to the Turton Arms or not, so he said: “Right.”
“You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
“No.”
“I found out the day of your release from the Governor. What’s the trouble? The sun a bit bright for you?”
“Er—yes.”
“It must be a bit of a change. Shall we go for some coffee? I know a place.”
“All right.”
They entered a coffee establishment known to Mr Burbage.
“I hope you didn’t feel we did too badly at the trial,” said Mr Burbage, twisting his spoon in his hand.
“No.”
“How did they treat you? All right?”
“Yes.”
“Well I daresay you feel a bit funny still. I’ll expect to hear all about it later on.”
After coffee it was nearly time to have lunch, so they went to a pub and nearly had lunch. Then they went to the Cartwright Grill and had lunch. Simpson had very little to say, but Mr Burbage seemed to understand and they sat in restful silence for much of the time, with Mr Burbage occasionally giving a brief description of some of his more interesting cases.
After lunch Mr Burbage said that he had a few routine matters to see to at the office. Perhaps Simpson wanted to go home and change and wash. Simpson did not. For the first time since leaving prison he felt a reaction, and he explained to Mr Burbage that once he had gone back home he would find it difficult to get out for the evening. His landlady, Mr Burbage would understand. The motherly type. Mr Burbage did understand, and Simpson went to the cinema. It was warm in the cinema and he felt lulled by the noise. The programme was a bit trying at first but after he had seen it through once he felt that it would be nice to see it again, now that he need feel no anxiety over what was going to happen, and he was sorry when the time came to leave. It was dark and the wind was extremely cold, and it was difficult to leave the warm protection of the cinema and strike off up the bustling street.
He met Mr Burbage as arranged, and they caught a crowded bus which led them high up past the city waterworks, through sooty stone suburbs, until it reached an enorm
ous cross-roads. There, black and aggressive, stood the squat, square building of the Turton Arms.
“It’s my local,” said Mr Burbage apologetically. “It’s nicer inside.”
They went inside. The pub was large and almost empty, except for a few people huddled against the bar. It would not fill up until after eight o’clock. Until then there would not be very much atmosphere, and Simpson found it difficult to abandon himself. He was thinking about his wife. Didn’t one have to make settlements on people of that sort? That would be an obstacle to his hopes of finding the universal…
The panacea! Of course! That was what he was for. It was a long time now since he had thought of the panacea. Too long.
“Drink up.”
He drank up. The beer was good.
“Same again?”
“Thanks.”
“Good, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“They keep it well here.”
“Yes.”
Mr Burbage went to the bar and bought two drinks. The industrial golfers who were leaning against the counter looked at him as if he was something the cat had brought in and would presently take out again. Then they returned to their drinks. Mr Burbage brought the drinks back to Simpson and said apologetically: “It gets livelier later on.”
Simpson experienced a return of the warmth he had felt for Mr Burbage in prison, and he said: “It’s all right in here.” Then they drank their drinks and Mr Burbage said: “Same again?” and Simpson said: “Thanks”, and Mr Burbage went to the bar and bought two more drinks. This time the industrial golfers did not even bother to look at him, and quite soon he brought the drinks back to their table. He said: “You’ll feel better when you have some more beer inside you,” and Simpson said: “Yes,” and Mr Burbage said: “It takes a bit of getting used to, being free again.”
Then Simpson said he was sorry that he had no money and asked him if he was sure he didn’t mind paying for all the drinks, and Mr Burbage explained that he had no one else to spend his money on.
