Maatstaf. Jaargang 28

[p. 12]

Elizabeth Harding The Visit

The bus which had brought her express drew up and she stepped out feeling that somehow the extra money had been wasted. She paused as though uncertain what to do. She looked at her reflection in the window of the bus shelter, caught it rather, this transparent self in her new dress her mother had bought her from the club. She would not want to be thought vain. She thought she had no right to vanity and so she turned away. The market was nearby. Perhaps she could buy a pair of shoes. She needed a pair and they were much cheaper here. Not for everything. But it made a change. Perhaps she could come afterwards. Afterwards. The word gonged inside her head and the hopeless sickness appeared again. The suddenness of the despair made her resent her appearance. She looked like a tart dressed in that way. It was ridiculous, obscene, like wearing canary yellow at a funeral. Not a funeral. No, it was like something else. Not a funeral. She would have thought that there would not have been a funeral, not until it was all over. All, all over. Then she could fade away. That's what people expected her to do. It was what they wanted from her.

She walked on, her slow anger, better than despair, speeding her. As though she was in some way responsible. She had heard the dirty rumour going round, especially from Mrs. Baldock. ‘Of course she's in some way responsible. I blame her to a certain extent. Cold as a dead cod.’ And people had laughed, thinking her analogy unfortunate.

She walked on, her heels drumming her anger on the pavement. It was a slow passion which drove her forward, a powerful piston of bitterness. She was driven almost running, past the stop of the local bus she could have caught. But she walked, or half ran. She was restricted by her shoes, her dress and the knowledge that her hair would come down. She reached the hill and began to walk up, each step draining her anger as though she was trickling blood. It was deliberate, this hill. They knew what it did to people. She knew she would arrive at the top, snatching a contrived arrogance from the air to feed her hunger for bitterness. She passed a woman with two children. She had seen her before. She smiled but felt too shy to talk. Yet there was a conspiracy between them. They were part of a club. Like a club of lepers. It was like that really. Weren't the lepers in the East in the old days made to stay outside the city walls and walk about crying ‘unclean, unclean’? Didn't it say so in the Bible? Reasonable on the part of those who hadn't got the disease, but hardly fair on those who had. After all, it wasn't their fault.

What had made her think like this? Thinking about lepers. ‘I'm not a leper,’ she muttered. She thought about her dress, her hairstyle. She wasn't a leper. No one could turn her out of normal life. Unless they knew. She stopped and turned away from the grim, black building at the top of the hill and gazed over the town. Unless they knew. And she suddenly felt as though, in spite of her dress and her hair, she had a withered, wasted, diseased body, only discernible by Mrs. Baldock and her ilk.

Bloody cow! she said and walked up.

It was like the head of some giant, this prison, pitted, grim and terrifying, keeping perpetual vigilance over the town. But it opened its mouth and let her in, as though swallowing a sacrificial sop, specially prepared for appeasement.

She sat in he dingy room, waiting. She was not the only one. A child began to whine and she felt very near despair. Then she was allowed to go through. She was led across the yard and noticed there were flowers in bloom in the

[p. 13]

middle. Bringing in this taste of freedom somehow increased the severity and sheer blackness of the incarcerating stone. She was silently escorted, but she knew where to go. The hospital wing was diagonally opposite the entrance. And she was a visitor. She was going to see a patient. In hospital. In hospital.

A group of men walking round the yard for exercise suddenly made her aware once more of her hair, her new dress and her borrowed shoes. They began whistling at her and calling out.

‘Knock it off you lot.’ The prison officer in charge of them was angry. ‘How would you like it if she was your wife?’

Yet she did not feel insulted. In a way it was flattering. And they could only think about their own wives between the bars of restricted visits. She was a symbol, a kind of unhallowed madonna. She was faceless. None of the men would recognize her again. She was, she admitted, a reminder of outside, a privileged member. Her husband was on remand. He was privileged - to have unlimited visits, letters, cigarettes. He was on remand. One of the elite. She was led inside and waited in a corridor, when she heard the name ‘Cartwright’ through a sharp shout.

And then she saw him, but turned her head away until they were in a separate room.

At the far end was a table and two chairs. They walked across and she was about to sit down when he put his arms round her and kissed her. She responded as though the reflex was the same unconditioned spontaneity of years ago.

He released her and looked at her. ‘How are you, love?’

‘All right. How are you?’

‘Fine.’

They sat down. She glanced nervously behind at the prison officer sitting at the far end of the room and began fumbling in her bag. ‘I wish they'd leave us alone, just for a few minutes.’ ‘They can't do that, you know. Anyway, he's all right. He's a nurse really. Done his Mental too, so he was saying. The Union's the same though, I think.’

‘But I don't like the way they call you by your surname. It's not right.’

‘Come on now. It's what the nobs do, isn't it? Call each other just Smith or Brown or whatever.’

‘That's all right. But you have to call them mister.’

‘Well, that's how it goes. Can't do anything about it.’

She took a number of cigarette packets from her bag. ‘That's the telly licence.’ She smiled then brought out some chocolate.

‘Are you going on all right? For money I mean.’ ‘Not too bad. They don't overpay you on Social Security but it's enough.’

‘And the kids, how are they?’

‘They're at me mum's while I'm here.’ She sighed and scratched the table. ‘The one who did it, didn't realize he was making those other kids orphans.’

‘You're only an orphan if both your parents are dead.’

She looked at him, about to speak, then realized she could not order into questions the muddle of her mind.

He said: ‘Mr. Crampshaw's doing all right. He's got good hopes.’

‘I went to see him this week.’

‘Oh, why?’

‘I don't know really. I was in town and I just popped in. I wanted to talk to him but I don't really know why.’

‘You don't want to bother him you know.’

‘Yes, I know. But he's ever so kind.’

‘He's getting up a good line of defence.’

She glanced round at the observer in the corner who was trying to give an impression of not observing. Then she turned back. ‘But to have a good line of defence means - you have to have something to defend.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I don't know really.’ She faltered, thinking for the first time that words were not enough, that there had to be meaning, real meaning behind them. But she refused to ac-

[p. 14]

knowledge the words she could have chosen. She said: ‘Do they treat you all right?’

‘Oh, aye. As well as can be expected. Of course, when you're on remand it's different from being a con.’

For a moment her understanding alighted on different words. Conscript. Conservative. They were rejected as she realized and was glad her stupidity had not found a voice.

He said: ‘You've got a new dress.’

‘Yes, me mum bought it. Do you like it?’

‘Aye, it's all right. You've had your hair done an'all.’

‘I went to Miriam's round the corner. She's not very expensive.’ She sounded apologetic.

‘Do you get out a lot, at night like?’

‘No, never. It's all I can do to go to the shops. I only go places when me mum's with me. Shopping and that. She even came with me to the hairdressers. Me dad wanted to take me to the club, but no, I can't.’

He nodded. He seemed satisfied. ‘Pity, isn't it?’ ‘That I don't go out?’

‘No. Pity you were still having your period the night before - the night before they came.’

‘Yes, it is a pity.’ It had been the largest period she had ever had. She was glad she had changed over to tampons.

There was a moment's silence. She watched a fly trying to escape through a window. Or perhaps it was not trying at all. How could she know? The question suddenly seemed important. Everything was important. Nothing was futile or without reason - even the sniff from the man behind or the slight scrape of his shoes on the floor. She said: ‘The vicar came yesterday.’

‘Oh? What did he want?’

‘Well you know. It's his job, isn't it?’

‘Aye, I suppose so.’

‘Your mum says if there's anything you want would you tell me and she'll bring it.’

‘Well, I suppose fags always come in.’

‘Haven't I brought you enough?’

‘Well, yes, but I go through some being in here.’ ‘Have they done anything else to you in here?’

[p. 15]

‘Tests you mean? Not really. But they're going to do some tests on me next week, brain tracings and things. I've got to go to a proper hospital. I'm looking forward to that.’

‘Oh, why?’

‘Well, it means I get out for a bit, doesn't it. Anything for a change.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Do you think I could come and see you then? Outside, at the proper hospital?’

‘I'll only be there for a morning or an afternoon.’

‘Yes, I know but it'll be different from here.’ ‘Well, I don't know. You could ask I suppose.’ ‘Couldn't you find out and let me know? Then I could come, choose what.’

He seemed doubtful. ‘I think it would be better if you asked. You don't want to do anything to annoy them.’

‘Well we'll see.’ She looked down at her handbag. ‘I think I ought to go now.’

‘You've only just come.’

‘I know but I must get that bus. Me mum wants to go out and I don't want to be back too late.’ ‘Okay.’

They stood up. He took her in his arms, but she remained standing rigidly. She looked into his face. ‘Len, tell me. Did you do it?’

He looked back at her. ‘Do you really have to ask that?’

There was a slight pause before she answered. ‘No.’

She relaxed as she realized it was part of the remand she had given him with the privileges of letters, visits and cigarettes. Then she put up her hands and kissed the stranger.

When she found herself outside, she stopped once more to look over the city. It had now become a habit. How long did you have to repeat something before the practice became part of you, before your body would expect you to travel along an imperceptible track. She thought resentfully that you should scream, fight, protest against the encroaching normality. Could nothing ever force you to retain a sense of revulsion, a loathing against regulating all horror?

She was at the bottom of the hill before she really knew it and standing in the crowded bus, swaying rhythmically on the leather hand strap, she knew the number of streets they had to pass. She got off the bus and went quickly to the market, hesitating first at the fruit stall. It was crowded and she could always get fruit at home. It would take a long time to get his defence sorted out which was perhaps a good sign. She could get her shoes next week. But no, she needed them and they were cheap here. She walked on to the shoe stall. Not to the man with the spiel. He was amusing, he came on other days to the market at home, but it took such a long time with him. She went to the ordinary stall and cast her eyes over the wares.

‘Difficult, isn't it?’

She turned round and a large woman wearing a tight coat from which two buttons had popped off rested her two bulky shopping bags on the ground. ‘You think you know what you want till you come to buy it. Wi'me I'm always wondering what to give them for their tea. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about it.’

‘Aye, it can be difficult.’

‘And Saturday, it's the same every bloody Saturday. I think these shoes would suit you.’ She pointed to one on top of its box. ‘And you can always wear them with trousers. Aye, it's the same every Saturday, hail, rain or shine. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the week. You think it's going to be different when you're a lass just about to get married. Still, you get used to anything in time.’

‘You have to, don't you?’

She put the shoe on a piece of cardboard and slipped her foot out of her own shoe. Yes, she could buy them. And if she gave them egg and chips on Thursday instead of meat and potato pie, she could still take him his cigarettes next week.