A Five Year Sentence

by Bernice Rubens

  Brian was waiting for her outside the library. She noticed that he was smiling, and somehow she felt that the smile was not prepared for herself. His smile was internal, and he was possibly unaware of the creases on his face or his look of benign cordiality. When he saw her, he stiffened, as with sudden stage-fright, and the smile was forced now, and produced.

  ‘Hullo, Brian,’ she said. She was careful to keep her distance in case the gin-port-lemon-lime concoction still hovered on her breath, then she went to his side and took his arm. ‘Where shall we go?’ she said.

  ‘I can’t stay long today,’ Brian said quickly. ‘My mother’s not too well.’

  She should have said she was sorry, but all the regret she felt was that his mother was not ill enough. ‘Oh, I was so looking forward,’ she said.

  ‘But I’ve got something for you,’ he said. He took a large folder from out of the inside of his coat. She made to take it from him, but he held it back. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s for you to look at when I’m gone.’

  ‘Is it the —’ She wondered whether there was a legitimate name for what the folder contained.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s what I promised.’

  She remembered the order in her diary. It was imperative that she see the list, otherwise there could be no bargaining. ‘Oh, let me see it now,’ she said. He shook his head emphatically.

  ‘Please,’ she said, but she could see that he was adamant. ‘All right,’ she said, risking it, ‘then I won’t take it at all.’

  He didn’t answer, but it was clear her response disturbed him. ‘Let’s sit down in the park,’ he said.

  So they walked in silence. Miss Hawkins was confident she would finally get her way, while Brian searched in his mind for some valid reason why she should not see the bill of fare. In desperation, he thought he might try the truth.

  They sat down on a bench. ‘I’m ready now,’ she said, settling herself.

  ‘I can’t show it to you. Not in front of me,’ he said.

  ‘Turn your back then.’

  ‘It’s not that. I just don’t want to be present.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  He looked away and to the trees that bordered the park, he said, ‘It’s sort of embarrassing.’

  She took his hand. ‘It’s embarrassing for me too,’ she said, ‘but like you said last time, we’re both beginners.’

  ‘You can see the first two parts of it,’ he said, still not looking at her.

  She reasoned that her diary would be satisfied. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘that’s a fair compromise.’

  He took the folder out of his coat, and hiding it from her view, he folded over the first offerings of his price list, and laid it squarely on her lap. Then he got up. ‘I’ll go for a bit of a walk,’ he said.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, though she was glad to be left alone. She waited until he gone some distance and out of ear-shot of her tremblings, and she fixed her eyes on the parchment sheet. The yellow roses impressed her enough to make her dwell long on their iridescent tear-drops of dew. She thought Brian was very romantic, and she looked up from the sheet of paper and watched him weaving his way through the trees, like a poet she thought, in search of inspiration. Hers was a pure and innocent appraisal, which was just as well, since it would act as a bulwark to the shock of the yellow roses’ copy. She laid her hand over the whole section, lowering it item by item.

  The first service read as follows: ‘To holding of hand, 2p.’ And bracketed underneath was written, ‘To holding of two hands, 3p.’ She appreciated the reduction, and thought that altogether it was a fair enough price for a gesture that gave her so much pleasure. Despite the diary, she felt it unfair to bargain on that item. Then she set to thinking whether he meant 2p each time, or whether that payment sufficed for each meeting. If she once let go of his hand, did she have to pay again to reclaim it? If such were the case, her whole nest-egg would evaporate on hand-holding. She resolved to clarify that item as soon as Brian returned. She looked up and saw him in the distance. His back was towards her. Then he stopped and slowly turned his head. He caught her watching him, and quickly he turned away and walked briskly to the far end of the park. He was clearly delaying his return. She was glad for she needed the time. She would insist that the hand-holding would be a single payment that covered the whole of each meeting. Then her diary would be satisfied. She lowered her hand to discover the next item. Her eye went first to the price column which had escalated considerably. For a touching of the elbow (through sleeve) was a princely 20p, a neck-hold was priced at 25p, and ankle embrace at 30p, and a knee-caress rocketed to 50p. She wondered why the knee was more expensive than the ankle. She personally would have interchanged the prices, but no doubt Brian’s lust-graduations reflected more the quality of his appetites than her own. The ankle caress was the last permitted item. The taboos lay beneath the fold. Even though Brian was still some distance away, she was not tempted to take a peep. Besides, she was aware of a fever that crept through her during her perusal of the first items, and she thought it better to keep the rest of the offerings for the privacy of her own sitting-room, with Maurice’s face firmly to the wall. She looked up and gauged her voice to the distance between them. ‘Brian,’ she shouted, ‘I’m ready.’

  He was glad there were few people in the park. Her shouting embarrassed him and it passed through his mind to put up his prices. He was loath to return to the bench and face her red anticipation of his services. Her blushes would make them obscene and render illicit what was in his view an entirely legitimate bill of sale. Well, she could take it or leave it. The world was full of clients.

  He strode aggressively towards her, and sat himself by her side. ‘Well?’ he said.

  She was astonished at his boldness and lack of reserve. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘But what about the 2p for holding the hand? Is that for all day?’

  ‘It’s for as long as you can hang on,’ he said.

  ‘Well I don’t think that’s very fair,’ Miss Hawkins said timidly. ‘I think it should be 2p for each meeting.’

  Brian was not pleased. If she was capable of bargaining on the smallest item, it was obviously a principle with her, and she would apply it to each available service. He did not feel he could yield. ‘I think it’s a fair enough price,’ he said.

  ‘But I’d spend all my money on just that one item. I’d have very little left for anything else. And I can guess what that is.’ She looked away from him and nudged him in the ribs. Brian began to wonder whether she was a client worth wooing. A lifetime of hand-holding with Miss Hawkins could hardly underwrite one week’s lodging at The Petunias. He couldn’t afford to lose a customer, yet it was a blow to his pride to sell his services so cheaply.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said, knowing that holding two hands would be a rare necessity, ‘you can have the two for the price of one.’

  She was satisfied. She had obliged her diary’s order. He took the parchment and replaced the folder which he put into her hand.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ he said. ‘You can take that home and study it. I’ll see you on Monday afternoon.’ He wanted to give her enough time to savour his offerings, but not enough to over-savour them, and therefore find his personal participation dispensable. He was aware of being in a tricky line of business.

  ‘Where shall we meet?’ she said. Normally it was a redundant question. The library was their accepted rendezvous. But she sensed that their next meeting might require some form of habitation.

  He smiled. ‘Shall I come to your house?’ he said.

  She gave him the address.

  ‘I’ll be there about three o’clock,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, sensing in advance some need to invent a postponement to the serious business of their meeting.

  They parted at the bus stop. She clutched the folder in her hand. As she passed the pub, the thought of a gin and lime quickly entered her mind and as quickly departed. Not because
of the sickness it might entail – that was due to mixing, she was sure – but because she feared by instinct a growing drink dependency. If Brian hadn’t entered her life, she might possibly have drunk her five years away into an alcoholic blur. Now she had been offered another addiction, and though possibly more costly, it would not blunt her responses to her enjoyment.

  When she reached home, she kneeled on the floor of the sitting-room facing Maurice as he leaned against the wall. ‘Look what I’ve got for you,’ she said, displaying the folder. ‘It’s a secret,’ she said, ‘but only for me. One day perhaps, I’ll share it with you.’ She turned him to face the wall, then she opened the diary and read the day’s order aloud. For a while, she held the red crayon in her hand, wishing to prolong the gratification, then meticulously she ticked off each order, adding an extra tick to the pub where she felt she had acquitted herself beyond the call of duty. She took off her coat and placed the folder on the dining-room table. She did not want to give herself the comfort of an armchair. She sensed she would need all her wits about her to fathom the subtleties of Brian’s list. On the hard dining-chair, she would feel sufficient discomfort to offset the pleasures of her list-perusal which she expected to be overwhelming. And as a practical prelude to the delights that were to come, she read and re-read the first section so that she knew it by heart.

  When she was ready for Brian’s main course dishes, she drew the curtains in the living-room, and switched on a small table-lamp. Then she remembered a bar of milk chocolate in the cupboard, one left over from a number she had bought on the day of her first meeting with Brian. The romantic half-light shed by the lamp, the chocolate cream and the delectable reading-matter all added up to a grand celebration. She angled the light on the folder and unwrapped the chocolate bar. Then, shutting her eyes, she revealed the bill of fare. She counted to ten before opening them again, and her first sight was that of the crown of thorns. She felt a surge of gratitude for the aptness of the symbol. Whatever Brian had prescribed as his specialities, they lay well and truly within the confines of faith, and thus assumed an enviable virtue. She had no need to scruple. The crown of thorns was a plea for her worship and dedication. She had long since ceased to have any religious faith, but now she had discovered a framework for a seemly catechism. She would read the list aloud, in solemn and reverent tones, as if it were a prayer.

  Chapter 9

  If Miss Hawkins thought that she was the sole disciple of Brian’s wayward church, she was mistaken, for over the past few days, her high priest had not been idle. He’d been round and about, drumming up business. He had visited the record library in the Town Hall, thinking it would provide a profitable quarry, and as it turned out, he was right. From the generous sprinkling of middle-aged ladies, it seemed as if music vied with cats and dogs as the indispensable companion to a loner. He had been there only a few minutes when one of the women actually accosted him. ‘D’you like music?’ she asked, but it was clear from her tone and facial expression that her curiosity about his musicology was minimal. Hers was a cultural form of soliciting. Nevertheless he took the question at its face value and answered that he did indeed like music, and found it a boon companion to one who lived alone, thus making his tastes and his domestic situation immediately clear. The lady, too, had no desire to beat about the bush. ‘I live alone too,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we can listen together sometime.’ Her boldness somewhat astonished him, as did his easy lie about his hermit existence. With very little encouragement he had managed to either bury his mother or to establish her at The Petunias, and he was glad that he could do it with so little scruple.

  ‘Come to my place,’ she was saying, and he noticed how her voice was suddenly a whisper. ‘I’ve got some very special lines.’ She winked at him. Instinctively he moved away, then regretted it, for though he wanted none of her services, he would have given his eye teeth to see her price list. It disturbed him to be confronted with the fact that others were in the business, and so brazenly. He reckoned that there were few men in the trade, and they surely had more subtle ways of client-pulling. He heard the patter of her receding footsteps on the parquet floor, and he turned to watch her, as, record-less, she left the room. Her feet and ankles, he noticed, were swollen, and they were stuffed into short-laced boots with precariously high heels. Her feet were the mark of her calling, the sum of a million to-and-fro steps on pavement stones, and cobbled alleys, and now, with the illegality of her calling, the respectable parquet floors of the establishment. She did not look back. There could be no regrets attached to her trade, else it would have reminded her that she was a woman withal, and without in any way connecting her pursuit with his, Brian felt faintly sorry for her.

  On the way home he decided to do his supermarket shopping. This was normally a Monday occupation, but since he would be otherwise engaged, he would do it forthwith, and his mother, without mentioning it, would appreciate his far-sightedness. He would buy her a bar of chocolate as well. Brian had always done the household shopping and cooking. His mother had always frowned upon domesticity, thinking she was above it, though for what reason Brian never knew, for apart from her reading of thrillers over and over again, she did little else with her time. She loved to eat and watch television. Since the onset of her condition, she rarely risked going out, though she would oblige Brian to take her for a short walk sometimes for a lungful of fresh air, to which she was not over-partial, but she feared the results of its deprivation. Yes, it surely was time she went into care, Brian thought, but for both of them the Twilight Home was out of the question. He wondered often why he hated it so; other old people found it adequate enough. What was so special about his mother that both of them considered it below her station. He had to conclude that there was nothing special at all, but that he could not bring himself to dump her there. When their neighbours had suggested it, he wondered at his stubborn refusal. It wasn’t even that he liked his mother, but he disliked her so much that he wanted to give her no cause to blame him, no stage for her masochistic triumph. She said often enough, and often without cause, ‘You’d like to see me dead, wouldn’t you?’ Yes, he would, indeed he would, when her moaning would be silenced once and for all. But from the Twilight Home she would bleat out her weary martyrdom and would give him little pleasure. The Petunias was the only solution. There, she would not only be out of the way, but grateful with it. He had to find some more clients. The record library had proved infertile ground. He must seek fresh fields. He took a wire trolley and entered the supermarket.

  He knew its layout intimately, for ever since it had opened, he had been a regular weekly customer. His needs and his mother’s were straightforward and constant. Indeed they were similar, a thought which often displeased him. So he would move from dairy to fruit, from meat to vegetables with speed and precision. It was only at the household counter that he dallied, trying to save on the cleaning material, mops and disinfectants, that his mother’s condition constantly required. It was as he approached this section of the supermarket, that a sense of shame always overcame him, the embarrassment of being seen to have anything to do with women’s work. He sampled the prices of the aerosol clean-airs from a distance, feigning only the cursory interest of one who is marginally curious as to how women get through their housekeeping allowance. Then, having fixed on the cheapest and largest, he looked furtively around him and dropped the can into his trolley as he was passing by. As he walked he concealed it beneath the frozen chicken, for he regarded it as the most shameful of his purchases. Then followed the need for toilet paper further down die counter. He baulked again. Such natural functions were unavoidable but there was no need to display their necessity in such a public place and when he saw others collecting their rolls, he could not help but look upon them with a certain disdain, and he was loathe to join their number. The rolls were at the very end of the shelf directly around the corner from the marmalade. He stretched out his hand for a double lavender, which seemed from his distant scrutiny to be the best bu
y, and as he picked it up from the shelf, another hand, fresh from jam collecting, reached round the corner for its natural need. Their grasp was simultaneous and on the same double roll, so it was inevitable that one should give way to the other, a sacrifice that Brian was all too ready to make, anything to avoid a confrontation at such a compromising counter. But the face attached to the groping hand now cornered, and was staring at him, and meekly thanking him, crumbling with the embarrassment of his discovery of her human frailty. He avoided her gratitude and quickly moved away, paper-less but proud and with a distinct feeling of gross superiority. He finished his shopping and joined the short queue at the cashier’s desk. He was too engrossed in his feeling of separateness to notice the lavender roll on top of the basket of the customer in front of him. And when he did, he noted too the other contents of her trolley. A half a pound of butter, one lamb chop, a small piece of cheese, a quarter of tea and a pound of sugar. To clinch it all was a tin of cat food. It was clearly the sum total of provisions of a woman who lived alone. He tried to recall her apologetic face, but he’d given it only a fleeting glance and nothing had registered. So he studied the back of her as if to find some clue to a possible interest in his price list. The queue moved forward, and she arranged her frugal needs on the counter. She turned to replace the trolley and caught sight of him and gave him again that apologetic smile. He felt he ought to say that she shouldn’t worry. He fully understood that like everybody else, or almost everybody else, she too had needs which she would have preferred to conceal, but what then was it doing so boldly displayed on the counter? He felt like offering his jacket as a cover. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day,’ he said, echoing Miss Hawkins’ first introduction. He suddenly felt a strange fondness for Miss Hawkins. No matter how large his clientele, she would always be his favourite, for it was she, as well as his mother, who, both unawares, had first put him in business. He would give her the odd perk or two, he decided.