It was mid-afternoon on Thursday 21st September, and Philippa was sitting in the basket chair at the open window of her room. She and her mother had just returned from a visit to Brompton Oratory to see the Mazzuoli Marbles and there was an hour before they needed to set out for work. Her mother had said that she would make the tea. From the kitchen Philippa could hear small noises like the scrapings of a secretive domestic animal, delicate tinklings, an occasional soft footfall. The sounds were extraordinarily pleasurable. The door of her mother’s room was open, but Thursday was early closing and no sounds came up from the street. The voices which drifted in through her own window seemed faraway shouts of joy from another world. It had been a hot oppressive day with the threat of thunder, but in the last half-hour the sky had lightened and now the room was filled with the strong mellow light which comes before the dusk.
Philippa sat absolutely still in the silence, and there began to flow through her a sense of tingling delight, entrancing in its strangeness. Even the inanimate objects in the room, the air itself, were suffused with this iridescent joy. She fixed her eyes on the geranium on the windowsill. Why had she never before realized how beautiful it was? She had seen geraniums as the gaudy expedient of municipal gardeners to be planted in park beds, massed on political platforms, a useful pot plant for the house, since it throve with so little attention. But this plant was a miracle of beauty. Each flowerlet was curled like a miniature rosebud on the end of its furred, tender stem. Imperceptibly but inevitably as her own breathing they were opening to the light. The petals were a clear, transparent pink, faintly striped with yellow, and the fan-like leaves, how intricately veined they were, how varied in their greenness, each with its darker penumbra. Some words of William Blake fell into her mind, familiar but new. “Everything that lives is holy. Life delights in life.” Even her body’s flux, which she could feel as a gentle, almost controlled, flow, wasn’t the inconvenient and disagreeable monthly discharge of the body’s waste. There was no waste. Everything living was part of one great wholeness. To breathe was to take in delight. She wished that she knew how to pray, that there was someone to whom she could say: “Thank you for this moment of happiness. Help me to make her happy.” And she thought of other words, familiar but untraceable to their source: “In whom we live and move and have our being.”
She heard her mother calling her from the front room. There was a smell of cut lemons and freshly brewed China tea, and the pot with their two special cups, the Worcester and the Staffordshire, were on a papier mâché tray on the bedside table. Her mother was smiling and holding out to her a tissue-wrapped package. She said: “I made it for you.”
Philippa took it and shook out from its folds a polo-necked jumper in a variety of soft browns and fawns, and with two oblongs of apple green, carefully placed above the right breast and at the back. The jumper had been constructed from every kind of knitting stitch, and the variety of textures between the panels, the subtle blending of colours, gave its basic simplicity such distinction that Philippa, tugging it over her head, exclaimed aloud with pleasure: “It’s lovely! Lovely! You are clever, but when did you knit it?”
“In my room, late at night. I didn’t want you to see it until it was finished. It’s quite simple really. The sleeves are just oblongs grafted onto the dropped shoulders. Of course, it’s too warm to be worn now, but come the autumn in Cambridge you will be glad of it.”
“I’m glad of it now. I’ll always be glad of it. It’s beautiful. Everyone will wonder where I bought it. I shall like saying that my mother knitted it for me.”
They looked at each other, two faces transformed with pleasure. “I shall like saying that my mother knitted it for me.” She had spoken the words spontaneously, without embarrassment. She couldn’t remember in her private, self-conscious, fabricated life when she had been able to speak so simply what was in her heart. She tugged her mane of hair free from the rolled collar and shook it free. Stretching both arms widely, she spun round in pleasure. In the oval glass which she had set between the two windows, she watched her spinning image, gold and fawn and brown and flashing green, and behind her the still flushed face of her mother, bright-eyed and alive.
The peal of the front doorbell, strident and peremptory, broke their mood. Philippa stopped spinning and they gazed at each other with surprised and anxious eyes. No one had rung that bell since the probation officer’s last visit. Her mother said: “Perhaps George has come back for something and has forgotten his key.”
Philippa went to the door. She said: “You stay here. I’ll go.”
The bell had rung again before she reached the bottom of the stairs. And with that second ring she knew that this was trouble. She opened the door.
“Miss Palfrey? I’m Terry Brewer.”
The voice was cautious, almost apologetic. He was proffering a card. He must have had it ready in his hands as he heard her coming down the stairs. She didn’t look at it. The police had cards too. There was a card for every purpose: warrants, authorizations, identity cards, licences, passes. They said: “Let me in. I exist. I am authorized, safe, respectable.” She didn’t need a card to know what business he was in. She kept her eyes on his face.
“What do you want?”
He was very young, not much older than she was, with strong, tightly curled hair low on his forehead, a heart-shaped face with a neatly cleft chin, jutting cheekbones and a delicate, moistly pouting mouth. His eyes were large and luminous, pale brown speckled with green. She made herself look into them.
“Just a chat. I’m a feature writer, a freelance. I’ve been asked to do an article for the Clarion. About lifers and their readjustment to the world outside prison. Nothing sensational. You know the Clarion. They’re not interested in morbid sensationalism. What I’m after is the human interest, how you discovered who your mother was, what it’s like living together after all these years, how she survived her time in prison. I’d like to interview you both. Of course, the name will be changed. I shan’t mention Ducton.”
It was hopeless to try to close the door in his face. Already his foot was jammed against the wood. She said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to see you.”
“Oh, but I don’t think you’ve got much choice, have you? Better me than a dozen others. One interview, exclusive, and I leave you strictly alone. No address printed. No names. The others might not be so accommodating. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
It was a lie about being a feature writer or a freelance. She doubted whether he were even a reporter. More likely he was a trainee journalist or had some minor job on the Clarion and he saw this as his first big chance. But someone must have tipped him off and there could be only one person. She asked: “How did you find us?”
“I’ve got friends.”
“One friend particularly. Gabriel Lomas?”
He didn’t answer, but she knew at once that the guess had been correct. His muscles were too undisciplined, the face too mobile for dissembling. So Gabriel must have telephoned Caldecote Terrace, choosing his time so that Hilda would be likely to be there alone. Maurice would have sniffed danger and deceit over the line, but Hilda, silly, innocent Hilda, was a predestined victim. She wondered by what guile Gabriel had extracted the truth from her and how much of it he had learned. He would have lied about their meeting, of course; even if it weren’t strictly necessary he couldn’t have resisted at least one lie. And then he would have done his research. He was to read history at Cambridge. He would have been meticulous about ascertaining the facts. And it wouldn’t have been so very difficult. There weren’t many crimes for which a woman would be imprisoned for nearly ten years. He would only have to study the press cuttings for 1968 and ’69. She was surprised that it had taken him as long as a week to discover who her mother was. But, then, he might have had more important matters on his mind. Perhaps this small betrayal hadn’t been given top priority.
Watching Brewer’s predatory, ingratiating smile, she could understand why Gabriel had been attracted. Singularity and strangeness in a face had always drawn him. Why else, at first, had he bothered with her? He picked people over like bric-a-brac, people could be discarded if he made a bad buy. This face would have intrigued him. The farouche good looks, the hint of corruption and danger, the spurious vulnerability. He was trying to look deprecatory, harmless, but she could almost smell his excitement. He was rather too carefully dressed and not altogether at ease in his clothes. This must be his best suit, kept for job interviews, weddings, seduction, blackmail. It was a little too well-cut, the lapels too wide, the cloth, more synthetic than wool, already creasing. It was odd that Gabriel hadn’t done something about his clothes. But he held himself well, he fancied himself, this common little pouf with his false, ingratiating smile.
“Look you’d better let me in. Get it over with. I’ll only be back. And I don’t want to discuss it here. I don’t want to start shouting. After all, someone from the street might hear us. They think your mother is called Palfrey, I suppose? Better keep it that way.”
Her mother had appeared at the top of the stairs. She whispered: “Let him in.”
Philippa stepped aside and he slid through the door. Her mother was standing at the open door of the flat and he pushed past her and moved into the front room as confidently as if he had been there before. They followed, side by side, and stood in the doorway regarding him. How eagerly he had pranced up those narrow shabby stairs, despising their poverty, their vulnerability! Now he was frankly surveying the room, keen-eyed as a creditor pricing their few possessions, his glance resting at last on the Henry Walton. The picture, which even to Philippa’s eyes looked suddenly out of place, seemed momentarily to confuse him.
It was an abomination that he should be there. Anger flowed through her. She was lifted exhilaratingly on a tide of passionate rage in which inspiration and action flowed together.
“Wait,” she said. “Wait.”
She ran into the kitchen and dragged the toolbox from the cupboard under the sink. Grasping the largest and strongest chisel, she walked past the front room with only a glance at Brewer’s face, stupid and vacant with astonishment, then went out shutting the door of the flat behind her. Then she inserted the blade of the chisel in the narrow gap between the lock and the door-jamb and worked away at the lock. She had no energy to waste on wondering what was happening inside the flat; all her strength, all her mind were concentrated on the task in hand. The lock didn’t break. It had been made to resist any such crude assaults. But the door itself was more fragile. It had never been intended as a front door and it had been there for over eighty years. She worked away, grunting with effort, and soon she heard the first creaks, saw the first splintering of the wood. After about two minutes it finally cracked and broke away. She gave a little moan and the door burst open under her hands. And now she was in the front room facing him, breathless, the chisel in her hand. When she could speak her voice was perfectly controlled.
“Right. Now get out. If you write a word, I’ll complain to your paper and to the Press Council that you forced your way in here, broke down the door and threatened to betray us to everyone in the neighbourhood unless we gave you an exclusive story.”
He backed against the wall, his eyes fixed on the chisel. His voice shook. He said in a hoarse whisper: “You crazy bitch! Who’s going to believe you?”
“More people than will believe you. Can you afford to take the risk? I’m eminently respectable, remember. Are you? And do you think a reputable newspaper will welcome that kind of publicity? My mother may be beyond compassion, but I’m not. I’m the dutiful daughter, risking my future to help her. Cambridge scholar in backstreet hideout. ‘She’s my mother,’ says Mary Ducton’s daughter. That’s the kind of emotional muck you had in mind, isn’t it? I qualify for pity. Do you seriously believe that anyone will believe that I broke down that door myself?”
“It isn’t my chisel! Why should I come here with a chisel?”
“Why indeed, except perhaps to force open a door. It’s a perfectly ordinary chisel. New, as you see. No distinguishing marks. Prove it isn’t yours if you can. And remember, it’s two against one. You seem to know who my mother is, what she did. Do you suppose a lie would stick in her throat? Not if it’s going to destroy your career it won’t.”
He said, with a kind of wonder: “Christ, I believe you’d do it!”
“I’m her daughter. If this didn’t succeed and you got away with it, how long do you think I’d let you last?”
There could be no doubt now of his terror. She could smell it, rancid as vomit. He backed towards the door as she advanced, chisel in hand, the point at his throat. Then he was gone and they heard the clatter of his frantic feet on the stairs.
Her mother moved along from the wall, feeling it with outstretched hands like a blind woman. Philippa went to her and led her to the bed. They sat side by side, their shoulders touching. Her mother whispered: “You frightened him.”
“I did, didn’t I? They won’t print anything, and he won’t write anything. Not yet anyway. Even if he tells, they’ll check with their lawyers first.”
“Couldn’t we go away? Not for long, just for a few days so that he’ll think he’s scared us off. We could go to Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight. I went there once for a Sunday school treat when I was nine. There are cliffs and sand and little Victorian coloured houses. Once he finds we’ve gone he won’t keep coming back.”
“He won’t come back at all. He won’t dare. He knows that I wasn’t bluffing. The Clarion is the last paper to print the kind of sentimental muck he had in mind. Even if they did print a story, they wouldn’t identify either of us or print the address. They have their liberal conscience to preserve. They won’t see it as their business to hunt you down. After all, as a lifer out on licence, in their eyes you’re practically a protected species.”
She was surprised that her mother was so shaken. She had seemed so strong when she first came out of prison. But perhaps nothing had mattered very much to her then. Perhaps it was only when she had stood on the canal bank in the green watery twilight, watching that shabby case finally topple out of sight, that she had laid herself open to the pain of living. She moved closer to her mother and put her arm round the shaking shoulders. She laid her cheek against her mother’s cheek, flesh against colder flesh. Then she kissed her. It was all so easy, so beautifully easy. Why had it taken her so long to learn that there was nothing to be afraid of in loving? She said: “It’s going to be all right. Nothing dreadful is going to happen. We’re together and no one can touch us.”
“But suppose he goes to another paper?”
“He won’t, not while he’s working for the Clarion. And if he does, we’ll destroy his career. All you have to do is to confirm what I tell them. If you seem frightened—well that would be natural. All it needs is the capacity to lie.”
“I don’t think I’d be very good at lying.”
“I don’t see why you should worry about lying. Telling the truth didn’t do you much good. But you won’t have to lie. I tell you, he’s not coming back.”
“The door. How can we lock it?”
“I’ll buy a bolt tomorrow and we can use that at night until I can get a new lock fixed. That isn’t important, it’s the least of our worries. He won’t come back, and there’s nothing worth stealing except the picture. A professional thief wouldn’t bother with this kind of place. He certainly wouldn’t take the Henry Walton. We were burgled once at Caldecote Terrace. What they like to pick up are small, the easily disposable valuables. There’s nothing here that anyone could want.”
She watched her mother’s hands restlessly moving together. Her own fingers, long, bony, the nails strong and narrow, but on her mother’s hands. Wringing her hands. It wasn’t an expression one would ever write, too trite, too imprecise; but apparently it did happen except that “wringing” wasn’t the right word for this rhythmic pressing together of the palms. The hands seemed to be comforting each other. She was staring fixedly ahead, apparently oblivious of those kneading palms. Perhaps she was recalling the heavy smoothness of a sea-washed stone rolled between her hands, seeing in memory the layered sea, stretching to infinity, the mottled wave curving to crash in shingled foam against her naked feet. Then her eyes blinked again into the present. She said: “How did he know?”
“Gabriel Lomas told him. Gabriel can smell out scandal, secrets, fear; it’s a talent he has. He couldn’t resist telling him. I can understand that. It was too important to him. Like me and the pregnant wife. In the end we think of no one but ourselves.”
“What pregnant wife?”
“No one you know. Someone I did down. Someone who needed this flat.”
“He seems a strange friend for Gabriel Lomas, a different class.”
“Oh Gabriel has a personality like a hexagon. People need touch only one side for an illusion of closeness. Forget about him. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get out of London for a time. Ventnor is as good a place as any, but you mustn’t expect to find it the same. No place ever is. And we’ll need some money. I’ve something left in the bank but we must keep a small reserve for when this lease runs out. It won’t be easy to find work in the Isle of Wight, not immediately, not at the end of the season.”
Her mother turned to her with the eyes of a pleading child.
“I’m sure you’ll like it there. And we needn’t be away long.”
Philippa said: “And you could change your name you know. It would make things easier.”
Her mother shook her head.
“No, I couldn’t do that. That would be defeat. I have to know who I am.”
Philippa got up from the bed.
“We’ll go tomorrow, just as soon as I’ve got the door mended and a new lock fixed. But first I have to go to Caldecote Terrace. I won’t be away long, not more than an hour. Will you be all right?”
Her mother nodded. She said, trying to smile: “I’m sorry I’m being so stupid. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
Philippa slung her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. Suddenly her mother called her back. She said: “Rose! You won’t take anything that isn’t yours?”
“Don’t worry,” she answered. “I shan’t take anything that they don’t owe us.”