MY FINGERS SO frozen, I can hold this pen for only seconds at a time. A word, another word, then another and another. And then I must sit on my hands to coax the blood back. The ink itself may soon freeze. If it froze, would the nib burst? Would even my pen be disfigured by this place?
But I am setting down words on a page. Which is something. In here, it is close to being everything.
Where to begin? With the policeman’s knock on my door at one in the morning? The night in the cells at Brighton police station? Mrs Marion Burgess in court, describing me as a ‘very imaginative’ man? The slamming of the van door after being led from the dock? The slamming of every door since?
Begin with Bert. Bert, who has given me this gift of writing.
Anything you want hidden, Bert says, I can hide. Screws won’t have a clue.
How does he know what I want? And yet he does. Bert knows everything. His petrol-blue eyes may well have the ability to see through walls. He is the most feared and powerful prisoner in D Hall, and he is, he’s announced, my friend.
This is because Bert likes to listen to an ‘educated fucker’ like me talk.
As soon as I was allowed out on association, Bert made himself known to me. I was collecting the pitiful scraps they call lunch (cabbage boiled until translucent, globs of unrecognisable meat) when someone in the queue felt the need to urge me forward with the words, ‘Get a move on, queer.’ Not the most original of insults, and I was ready to keep my head down and do exactly as asked. This strategy had got me through the last three months without too much aggravation. Then Bert appeared by my side.
‘Listen, fucker. This man’s a friend of mine. And friends of mine ain’t queer. Got it?’
His voice low. His cheek pale.
For the first time, I looked straight ahead as I walked to a table. I followed Bert, who somehow communicated that this was his wish without uttering a word or even making a gesture. Once we were seated with our trays, he nodded in my direction. ‘Heard about your case,’ he said. ‘Diabolical liberty. They done you, just like they done me.’
I didn’t contradict him. It’s possible that because I don’t flounce about wearing ‘powder’ (flour from the kitchen) and ‘nail varnish’ (paint lifted from the art class), Bert believes I am a normal. Many of the minorities in here are very, very blatant. I suppose they think they might as well pass the time as well as possible. The grey woollen capes we’ve been issued for the winter months – which fasten at the neck and fall full to the waist – do make a quite theatrical effect when swept over one shoulder in the yard. So why not make the most of them? I’m a little tempted myself. God knows they’re quite the best item in the prison wardrobe. But old habits, as they say, die hard. And so Bert, if no one else, has been fooled. And no man contradicts Bert.
I’d known about him before he introduced himself. He’s a tobacco baron. Every Friday he collects his profits from the men for the ‘snout’ that he’s let out to them at a huge rate of interest. He’s nothing to look at. Short, ginger-haired, stout about the middle. Tattoos up both forearms, but he’s told me these were a youthful mistake, one he now regrets. ‘Got them up Piccadilly,’ he said, ‘after me first proper tickle. Got a grand that time. Thought I was the king or summat.’
But Bert has natural leadership. It’s in his soft, low voice. His all-seeing face. The way he stands as if he’s grown out of the ground. As confident in his right to exist as any tree. And it’s in the way he befriends people who need him, like me, and then makes the most of them. So. Bert has agreed to hide this exercise book. He’s told me himself that he can’t read. And why would he lie about a thing like that?
All I need do in return, he says, is talk. Like an educated fucker should.
I’ve been thinking a lot about razor blades. And fingerless gloves. I find these two items can occupy my mind quite fully.
Fingerless gloves because my hands are cracked and red around the joints due to the extreme cold. I daydream of the pair I had whilst at Oxford. Dark green, boiled wool. At the time I believed they gave my hands a rather workmanlike appearance. Now I know what a luxury those gloves were.
And razor blades. The ones they issue here each morning are too blunt to cut a decent shave. At first this nearly drove me to distraction. The itchiness of stubble was intolerable to me, and I spent much of the day scratching, or wanting to scratch, my face. I yearned for my own razor. Kept picturing how I’d simply walked into Selfridges and purchased it without thinking twice.
It’s easy to become very focused, I’ve found, on such small things. Especially when every day is the same, bar a few differences in the food offered (on Friday we have stale fish in thick batter, on Saturdays a dab of jam with our teatime bread) or the routines adhered to (church on Sunday, bath on Thursday). To think of larger things is madness. A bar of reconstituted soap. A clean chamber pot. A sharper razor blade than yesterday. These things come to mean a lot. They keep one just about sane. They are something to think about that is not Tom. Because to think about my policeman would be hell. I do everything I can to avoid such thoughts.
Razor blades. Chamber pots. Dabs of jam. Soap.
And for fantasy: fingerless gloves.
I’ve never been so aware of the dimensions of any room before this cell. Twelve foot long, nine foot wide, ten foot high. I’ve paced it out. Walls painted dull cream halfway up, then whitewashed. Floor of scrubbed bare planks. No radiator. Canvas bed with two scratchy grey blankets. And in the corner, a small table, at which I write this. The table is covered in characters carved into its poor surface. Many are statements of time: ‘Max. 9 months. 02.03.48’. Some are pathetic jibes at the screws: ‘Hillsman sucks cock’. The one I’m most interested in, and sometimes spend many minutes just rubbing my thumb over, is the word ‘JOY’. A longed-for woman’s name, I suppose. But it’s such an unlikely word to find on a table in here that occasionally it’s tempting to read it as a small message of hope.
There’s one window, high up and made of thirty-two (I’ve counted them) dirty panes of glass. Every morning I wake long before the bolts on the door are unlocked, and I stare at the dim outlines of these squares of glass, trying to convince myself that today the sun might make it through and cast a jewel of light on to the floor of the cell. But this has yet to happen. And perhaps it’s better like this.
No way to tell exactly what time it is, but soon the lights will go out. And then the shouting will begin. My God. My God. Every night the man shouts, over and over. My God. My God. My GOD! As if he believes he really can summon God to this place, if only he can shout loud enough. At first I expected another prisoner to shout back, order him to shut his mouth. That was before I understood that once lights are out, no other prisoner will ask you to deny your pain. Instead we listen in silence, or call back our own grief. It’s left to the screws to bang on his door and threaten him with solitary.
The knock at the door. A quarter past one in the morning. A loud knock. The sort of knock that won’t stop until answered. That may not stop, even then. A knock designed to let all your neighbours know that someone has come for you in the dead of night and will not leave until they have you.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I must have slept through the downstairs buzzer, because someone was right outside the door to my flat. I knew it couldn’t be Tom. He had his own key. But I had no idea it would be another policeman.
His hand still in the air when I opened up. His face comically small and red beneath his helmet. I looked behind him for Tom, thinking – in my sleep-drugged state – perhaps this was some kind of joke. And there were three more of them. Two in uniform, like the one doing the knocking. One plain clothes, hanging back, peering down the stairs. I looked again. But Tom’s face was nowhere.
‘Patrick Francis Hazlewood?’
I nodded.
‘I have a warrant here for your arrest on suspicion of committing acts of gross indecency with Laurence Cedric Coleman.’
‘Who?’
The red-faced one sneered. ‘That’s what they all say.’
‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘They all say that, too.’
‘How did you get up here?’
He laughed. ‘You have very obliging neighbours, Mr Hazlewood.’
As he was reciting the usual lines – anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence, etc. etc. – I could think nothing. I stared at the deep dimple in his chin and tried to understand what could possibly be happening. Then his hand was on my shoulder, and the feel of that policeman’s glove made the reality of what was going on begin to seep into my brain. My first thought was: it’s actually Tom. They know about me and Tom. Something – some police code – is stopping them from saying his name, but they know. Why else would they be here?
They didn’t handcuff me. I went quietly, thinking that the less fuss I made, the less awful it might be for him. The red-faced man, whose name I later learned was Slater, said something about a search warrant; I saw no such document, but as Slater led me away, the two other uniformed men swooped into my flat. No. Swooped is too dramatic. They slipped in, grinning. My journal was open, I knew, on the desk in my bedroom. It wouldn’t take them long to find it.
Slater seemed rather bored by the whole business. As we rode through town in the Black Maria, he started chatting to his plain-clothed colleague about another case in which he’d had to ‘cosh’ the criminal. His victim had cried, ‘just like my mum when I told her I was becoming a copper’. The two of them sniggered like schoolboys.
Once in the interview room, it became clear who Laurence Coleman was. An unflattering photograph of the boy was slapped on the table. Did I know this young man? Had I, as he’d said in his statement, ‘tapped him up for a beefer’ outside the Black Lion conveniences? Had I committed acts of gross indecency in said public conveniences with this man?
I almost laughed with relief. This was not about Tom, but the dark-haired youth at the Argyle.
No, I replied. I had not.
Slater gave a smile. ‘It will be better for you,’ he said, ‘if you tell the truth and plead guilty.’
What I remember now is the number of tea stains on the chipped table, and the way Slater gripped the edge of his chair as he leaned forward. ‘A guilty plea,’ he said, ‘often saves a lot of trouble. Trouble for you. And trouble for your associates.’ The redness in his cheeks had drained and the creases around his mouth showed clear in the blast of the overhead light. ‘Family and friends are often hurt in these cases.’ He shook his head. ‘And it’s all so easily avoided. Breaks my heart.’
A cold rush of panic spread through my chest. Perhaps this was really about Tom after all, and this was Slater’s way of saving a friend and colleague.
I looked him in the eye. ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘And now I come to think of it, I did meet that young man, and we fucked right there in the lav and we both loved it.’
A short smile crossed Slater’s face. ‘That’ll make the jury’s job very easy,’ he said.
At nine this morning, a warder – Burkitt – arrived in my cell. Burkitt has a reputation for being something of a sadist, but I’d yet to see any evidence of this. He’s a slim, tall man with large brown eyes and a closely cropped beard, and would be handsome were it not for his non-existent chin. He said nothing for a few moments. Just stood there in front of me and slowly unwrapped a mint humbug.
Then: ‘Hazlewood. Get a move on. Visit to the trick cyclist.’
‘Trick cyclist?’ I still don’t understand all the prison language. Some of it is impressively imaginative, if gruesome. ‘Dry bath’ for strip search seems particularly appropriate to me.
Burkitt popped the humbug in his mouth, gave a little push on my shoulder and did not see fit to enlighten me. As we walked, he kept very close behind, saying, ‘You queers have it cushy in here, don’t you? Plenty of business.’ His mouth was so close to my ear that I could smell the sweet mint of his breath. So, I thought, this is where his reputation comes from: he knows how prison tobacco leaves our mouths with the taste and texture of a rough hound’s backside, and so he tortures us with his minty freshness.
We walked out of D Hall, along a long corridor, through several locked doors, out into the yard, through a locked gate and into a miraculous place: the hospital wing. I’d heard rumours of the existence of this clean, new building, and know men who’ve tried everything – including burning their own arms with slugs of hot oil in the kitchen – to win a short stay there.
As soon as we stepped inside the white walls, the smell of new plaster hit me. After the prison stench of boiled cabbage and the stale sweat of hundreds of terrified, unwashed men, this new smell brought tears to my eyes. It was a smell almost like bread. I wondered, briefly, what a recently plastered wall would taste like, if licked. Everything was brighter, too. Large windows ran the length of the corridor, washing the whole place with light.
Burkitt jabbed a finger between my shoulder blades. ‘Up.’
At the top of the staircase was a door with the words DR R.A. RUSSELL attached in modern silver script. Burkitt unwrapped another humbug and began to suck, staring at me all the time. Then he knocked on the door.
‘Come in.’
A fire roared in the grate. Beneath my feet was a new carpet. Although it was a thin, synthetic monstrosity – multicoloured cubes on a royal-blue background – the feel of it beneath my boots was wonderful. Standing there, I felt suddenly lifted from the floor.
A man rose from behind a desk. ‘Patrick Hazlewood?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Dr Russell.’
He couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight. Dimples on his ample cheeks. Wearing a boxy blazer, unbuttoned. Around his cushiony middle a very new-looking belt bit into his flesh. He didn’t look at all threatening, but I still had no idea what kind of treatment I’d been sent for.
‘Thank you, Burkitt,’ he said, beaming at the scowling screw.
‘Right outside,’ said Burkitt, slamming the door.
Russell looked at me. ‘Sit down.’
It was unexpected, this order. Seduced, I suppose, by the carpet, the fire and Russell’s schoolboy cheeks, I’d almost been anticipating the word please.
He settled himself into his leather office chair and picked up a fountain pen. Despite the comforts of the room, my chair was the familiar wooden type. He must have seen me looking at it in disappointment, because he said, ‘I’m working on that. Ridiculous to expect a person to talk freely whilst perched on a school chair. No one tells teacher their secrets, eh?’
Of course, I thought. He’s the psychiatrist. I relaxed a little. I’ve never believed they could offer any type of ‘cure’, but I’ve always been curious about what it would be like to visit one.
‘So. We start by you telling me how you are at the moment.’
I said nothing. I was lost in the print of Matisse’s La Danse that hung above his desk: the first piece of art I’d seen for three months. Its bright colours seemed almost obscene in their beauty.
Russell followed my gaze. ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ he asked.
I couldn’t speak for a full minute. He waited, turning his pen over and over. Then I blurted: ‘Did you get it to torture your patients into a confession?’
He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his knee. ‘I’m not here for confessions. There’s a priest who will gladly hear them every Sunday. Do you believe?’
‘Not in any god who condemns so many.’
‘So many of – your kind?’
‘Of all kinds.’
There was silence for a while.
‘I’m interested in why you find torture in that picture.’
‘I would have thought that was rather obvious.’
Russell raised his eyebrows. Waited.
‘It’s a reminder of beauty. Of what’s outside these walls.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right. But some can find beauty wherever they are.’
‘There’s not much in this place.’
Another long pause. He tapped his pen three times on his notepad and smiled, very suddenly. ‘Do you want to be cured?’ he asked.
I almost snorted. Checked myself when I felt the intensity of Russell’s serious gaze.
It was an easy question to answer. Did I want to spend more time up here in this light, warm room, chatting with Russell by the fire? Or did I want to be sent back to my cell?
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Oh yes.’
We are to meet once a week.
I say I do everything possible to avoid thinking about Tom, but, of course, Tom is mostly what I think about. And it is hell. Not least because the more I think about him, the more I cannot remember the reasons why we could not be together. The more I think about him, the less I remember anything that was wrong, or difficult. All I remember is his sweetness. And that is the hardest thing to bear. Yet my mind keeps returning to it. Keeps returning to Venice. Most especially to the water taxi we took in the dead of night, over the lagoon to the city. We climbed into the shining wooden cabin, sat together at the back of the boat, and our captain closed the hatch to give us privacy. Then we sped across the waves, so fast we couldn’t stop laughing at the sheer daring of that little boat on the black water. Zoom, we went. Zoom. Our thighs touching. Our bodies forced back by the speed of the thing. And then the boat suddenly slowed, and the beauty of Venice unrolled itself outside the tiny windows. Tom gasped, and I smiled at his wonder. But to me the wonder was the touch of his hand on mine in that cabin which was ours alone for the time it took to reach our hotel.
Like most who experience these things, throughout the arrest and trial, and the first few days in here, I truly thought someone would appear to announce that there’d been a terrible mistake and ask that I accept the apologies of everyone involved. And all the doors that had slammed shut would open again and I would walk through them, out into the clean air, away from the strange piece of theatre my life had become.
But thirteen weeks in, I’ve grown as used to the routine as most of the others. And I perform it with the same dead-eyed, accepting stare. 6.30 a.m. Buzzer signals it’s time to get up. 7 a.m. Slop out, being careful to carry one’s metal chamber pot with the utmost nonchalance. Fetch cold water and shave with allocated blunt blade. I’m now, since being on association, allowed to ‘dine out’ with the other men, rather than eating all meals alone in my cell. But it’s the same dishwater tea, stale bread, smear of marge and – almost tasty – bowl of porridge. Perhaps porridge is so vile there’s not much one can do to make it worse. Then it’s to work in the library. My position there has enabled me to gain access to exercise books and pens, but as a description of the place, the word ‘library’ is something of a joke – the books are all filthy (in strictly a literal sense) and obsolete. It’s impossible for a prisoner to obtain anything he really wants to read, save for the few paperback Westerns available on each of the corridors. The library is dingy, but at least it’s slightly warmer than the rest of the prison. One of the radiators actually works. The warder in charge – O’Brien – must be nearing retirement, and spends most of the day sitting in the corner barking for silence and refusing requests. However, he is rather deaf, so the noise must reach a certain volume before he barks. This makes it possible for the men to speak to one another quite freely, so long as they keep their voices fairly low.
Much of the work involves dealing with new deliveries from public libraries. We always get the absolute dregs. In yesterday’s shipment, for example: a guide to the maintenance of Norton motorcycles from the 1930s, a history of the village of Ripe, a book on the coinage of the Middle East, another on the dress of the people of Latvia, and – the only slightly interesting volume among the whole lot – a biography of William of Orange, written in 1905.
With me in the library is Davies, a large, quiet man with grey eyes, who is apparently in for causing his wife grievous bodily harm. Impossible to imagine anyone less likely to commit such a crime. But one learns not to question a man too closely on his conviction. Also with me is Mowatt, a young fair-haired lad festooned with freckles. A habit of licking his lips as he works. Mowatt was a Borstal boy, like so many of them here. Talks a lot about his next ‘twenty-two-carat doddle’, which I now understand to mean his next fantastically large-scale yet utterly risk-free robbery. He walks as though his feet are too long, picking them up and placing them down so carefully you want to offer him an arm.
Yesterday Mowatt said nothing at all as we sorted through our shipment of books. At first I was glad to be spared the usual fantasies of how, on his release, he’d hook up with this gorgeous bird who’s waiting for him and make use of the ton he’s got stashed for a new life in Spain. But later I noticed that his hands trembled more than usual on the book spines, and he walked as if his feet were not only too long but also incredibly heavy. At last Davies shed light on it. ‘Family visit,’ he whispered. ‘Tomorrow. He’s saved enough for a bit of hair oil but he’s obsessed with the state of his boots. I told him. He can’t borrow mine. I’d never get them back.’
And so this morning, whilst we were sitting together at the library table, I slipped off my boots, which I’d left unlaced, and kicked them in Mowatt’s direction. No response. So I shoved an out-of-date theology textbook towards him, deliberately nudging him in the ribs with one corner. ‘Oi!’ he began, making O’Brien look up. But I put my hand on his, very gently, to silence him, and the deaf old screw chose to ignore us.
Mowatt looked down at my fingers, lost for words for a minute. I gestured beneath the table, seeking his boot with my foot. After a second, he understood what was going on. He looked at me with such warmth in his eyes that I almost laughed. I almost opened my mouth and roared with laughter in that stinking, cold room, amongst those useless, forgotten books.
Another visit to Russell’s warm sanctuary.
‘Why don’t we start with you telling me about your childhood?’
‘I didn’t think psychiatrists really said that.’
‘Begin wherever you like.’
My first instinct was to make something up. At the age of nine I was taken brutally over the nursery rocking horse by my Russian uncle, and ever since I’ve been drawn to other men, Doctor. Or: My mother dressed me in flowered smocks and rouged my cheeks when I was five, and ever since I’ve longed to attract a strong man to my bed, Doctor. But instead I told him a kind of truth: that mine was a happy childhood. No brothers or sisters to knock me off my perch. Many idyllic hours spent playing in the garden (with a sailor doll named Hops, but outside nonetheless). My father largely absent, like many fathers, but not overly mysterious or abusive, despite his later dalliances. Mother and I always got along well. Whenever I was home from school, we enjoyed our times together, going up to town to the theatre, museums and cafés … I ran away with myself rather, telling him about the time in Fortnum’s when a stranger at the next table had tried to buy Mother a glass of champagne. She’d smiled and very firmly turned him down. I’d been so disappointed. The man had a blue silk cravat, wonderfully waved blond hair and had worn a sapphire ring on his index finger. He’d looked to me as though he knew all the secrets of the world. As we left the place, Mother had commented hotly on his impertinence, but that afternoon her whole being had been lit up in a way I’d never seen before. She’d moved in an easier way, laughed at my silly jokes and bought all sorts of things that hadn’t been on our list: a new scarf for her, a leather-bound notebook for me. I still think of that man sometimes, remembering the way he’d sipped his coffee and shrugged at Mother’s rejection. I’d wanted him to weep or become angry, but he’d merely put down his cup, bowed his head and said, ‘What a shame.’
‘That’s our time almost up,’ said Russell.
I waited for his comments about how I had projected myself into my mother’s situation and this was really most unhealthy and it was no wonder I was in prison for gross indecency. But none came.
‘Before you leave,’ he said, ‘I want you to know that you could change. But the question is: do you really want to?’
‘I told you last week. I want to be cured.’
‘I’m not sure I believe you.’
I said nothing.
He let out a long breath. ‘Look. I’ll be honest with you. Therapy can help some individuals to overcome certain … proclivities, but it’s very hard work, and it takes a lot of time.’
‘How much time?’
‘Years, probably.’
‘I only have six months left.’
He gave a rueful laugh. ‘Personally,’ he said, leaning forward and lowering his voice, ‘I think the law is an ass. What two adults get up to in private is their business.’ He was looking at me very seriously, dimpled cheeks aglow. ‘So what I’m saying is, if you want to change, then therapy could help you. But if you don’t …’ he held his palms upward and smiled, ‘then it’s really not worth the effort.’
I held out a hand, which he took, and thanked him for his honesty.
‘No more fireside chats, then,’ I said.
‘No more fireside chats.’
‘That’s a great shame.’
Burkitt took me back to my cell.
I’m trying to keep the image of La Danse in my head.
I don’t suppose a man of Russell’s integrity will last long here.
In Venice we’d spend the morning in bed, have a long lunch on the hotel terrace, then walk through the city. Delicious freedom. No one glanced our way, even when I took Tom’s arm and guided him through the throngs of tourists on the Rialto Bridge. One afternoon we stepped out of the summer fug and into the sweet coolness of the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. What I’ve always loved about the little place is its paleness. With its pastel grey, pink and white marble walls and floor, the Miracoli could be made of sugar. We sat together in a front pew. Utterly alone. And we kissed. There in the presence of all the saints and angels, we kissed. I looked at the altar with its image of the miraculous Virgin – reputed to have brought a drowned man back to life – and I said, ‘We should live here.’ After just two days of the possibilities of Venice, I said, ‘We should live here.’ And Tom’s answer was, ‘We should fly to the moon.’ But he was smiling.
*
Every fortnight I am allowed to receive and reply to one letter. So far, most of these have been from Mother. They’re typed, so I know she dictates them to Nina. She says nothing of her health, merely rattles on about the weather, the neighbours, what Nina has cooked for supper. But this morning there was one from Mrs Marion Burgess. A short, formal letter requesting permission to visit. At first I was determined to refuse. Why would I want to see her, of all people? But I soon changed my mind. The woman is my only link to Tom, whose absolute silence I hardly dare consider. I’ve heard not one word from him since my arrest. At first I almost hoped he would appear in the Scrubs, to serve his sentence, just so I could see him again.
If she comes, perhaps he will come too. Or perhaps she will carry some message from him.
The courtroom was small and stuffy, with none of the embellishments I’d expected. More like a school hall than a chamber of the law. Proceedings began with the public gallery being warned that the trial would contain material of a nature offensive to ladies, who might wish to leave. Every single one of them made an immediate bolt for the exit. Only one looked slightly rueful. The rest blushed to their hairlines.
As the counsel for the prosecution, Jones – Labrador eyes, but the voice of a bichon frise bitch – presented the case against me, Coleman stood shaking in the witness box, never once meeting my eye. In his blue flannel suit he looked older than when we last met. When he was cross-examined it became clear – to me, at least – that he’d made his claim to get himself out of trouble; he admitted to being involved in a petty piece of thievery. But even this realisation did not wake me from my daze. Everyone in the courtroom seemed to be going through the motions, the police yawning occasionally, the judge looking on impervious, and I was no different. I stood in my box, all the time aware of a uniformed man sitting behind me, biting his nails absent-mindedly. I found myself listening to the sound of the saliva in his mouth, rather than the court proceedings, as he nibbled away. I kept telling myself: in a few moments I’ll receive my sentence. My future will be decided. But somehow I could not comprehend what was happening to me.
Then everything changed. My barrister, the amiable but ineffectual Mr Thompson, began his presentation of the defence. And he called Marion Burgess.
I was prepared for this. Thompson had asked me who I’d recommend as a character witness. My list did not include anyone who was both female and married, as he’d soon pointed out. ‘Don’t you know any really dull ladies?’ he’d asked. ‘Librarians? Matrons? Schoolteachers?’
Marion was my only choice. And I calculated that, even if she did know the truth about my relationship with Tom (he’d always reassured me that she did not, although in my estimation she seemed too sharp to miss it for long), she would not risk denouncing me because of the damage it would cause her husband and, by extension, herself.
She was wearing a pale-green dress, too loose for her. She’d lost weight since I last saw her, and this accentuated her height. Her red hair was set into an absolutely unmovable shape. She stood very straight and clutched a pair of white gloves as she spoke. I could hardly hear her voice as she stated the usual formalities – her oath, her name, her occupation. Then she was asked in what capacity she knew the accused.
‘Mr Hazlewood was kind enough to take my pupils for an art-appreciation afternoon at the museum,’ she stated. And suddenly her voice was not her own. Long ago I’d guessed her teaching had chipped the edges from her Brighton accent – which is not nearly as pronounced as Tom’s – but in that witness box she sounded as though she’d been to Roedean.
She confirmed that I had performed my duties thoroughly, she would not hesitate to call on me again, and I was absolutely not the sort of man one might ordinarily find committing acts of gross indecency in a public convenience. Then the counsel for the prosecution stood and asked Mrs Burgess if she knew the accused in anything other than a professional capacity.
A flicker of concern passed across her freckled face. She said nothing. I willed her to look at me. If she would only look at me, I might have a chance of staring her into silence.
‘Is it not the case,’ continued Jones, ‘that the accused is a close friend of your husband, Constable Thomas Burgess?’
The sound of his name made me gasp. But I kept my eyes on Marion.
‘Yes.’
‘Speak up so the court can hear you.’
‘Yes. He is.’
‘How would you describe their relationship?’
‘It’s as you said. They’re good friends.’
‘So you know Mr Hazlewood personally, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you still say he is not the sort of man who would commit the crime of which he is accused?’
‘Of course he’s not.’ She was looking at Jones’s shoulder as she answered him.
‘And you completely trusted this man with your pupils?’
‘Completely.’
‘Mrs Burgess, I would like to read an extract from Patrick Hazlewood’s diary to you.’
Thompson objected, but was overruled.
‘Some of it is rather purple, I’m afraid. It’s dated October 1957.’ Jones spent a long time fixing his glasses to his nose, then cleared his throat and began, one hand waving airily about as he read. ‘And then: the unmistakable line of his shoulders. My policeman was standing, head on one side, looking at a rather mediocre Sisley … Magnificently alive, breathing, and actually here, in the museum. I’d pictured him so many times over the past days that I rubbed my eyes, as disbelieving girls do in films.’ A short pause. ‘Mrs Burgess, who is “my policeman”?’
Marion pulled herself up taller, stuck out her chin. ‘I have no idea.’
She sounded quite convincing. More convincing than I would have done, under the circumstances.
‘Perhaps another extract will help you to remember. This time dated December 1957.’ Another clearing-of-throat-placing-of-glasses-on-nose performance. Then: ‘We’ve been meeting some lunchtimes, when he can get a long break. But he has not forgotten the schoolteacher. And yesterday, for the first time, he brought her with him … They are so obviously mismatched that I had to smile when I saw them together.’
I winced.
‘She is almost as tall as he is, made no attempt to disguise it (wearing heels), and is not nearly as handsome as him. But I suppose I would think so.’
A long pause from Jones.
‘Mrs Burgess, who is “the schoolteacher”?’
She made no reply. She was still standing very tall and straight, looking at his shoulder. Cheeks red. Blinking a great deal.
Jones addressed the jury. ‘This journal contains many more intimate details of Patrick Hazlewood’s relationship with “his” policeman, a relationship that can only be described as deeply perverse. But I’ll spare the court any further account of such depravity.’ He turned back to Marion. ‘Who do you think the accused is writing about, Mrs Burgess?’
‘I don’t know.’ Bite of the lip. ‘Perhaps it’s some fantasy of his.’
‘There’s an awful lot of detail for a fantasy.’
‘Mr Hazlewood is a very imaginative man.’
‘Why, I wonder, would he imagine his male lover to be engaged to a schoolteacher?’
No response.
‘Mrs Burgess, I don’t want to embarrass you, but I must put it to you that Patrick Hazlewood was having an indecent relationship with your husband.’
Her eyes dropped and her voice became very faint. ‘No,’ she said.
‘Do you deny that the accused is a homosexual?’
‘I – don’t know.’
She was still standing tall. But I could see her gloves trembling. I thought of how she’d walked down North Street with Tom on the day we’d first met. Her pride and assurance emanating with every step she took. And I wanted to give those qualities back to her. Her husband she could never have, and I was glad of it. But I’d no desire to see her like this.
Jones the bichon bitch would not give up, however. ‘I have to ask you again, Mrs Burgess. Is Patrick Hazlewood the kind of man who would commit acts of gross indecency?’
Silence.
‘Please answer the question, Mrs Burgess,’ the judge interrupted.
There was a very long pause before she looked straight at me and said, ‘No.’
‘No further questions,’ said Jones.
But Marion was still talking. ‘He was very good with the children. He was wonderful with them, in fact.’
I nodded at her. She gave a small nod back.
It was a swift, unsentimental and wholly civilised exchange.
After that, all I could think was: what will happen to Tom? What will they do to him now? And how can he ever forgive my stupidity?
But my policeman was not mentioned again, despite his name being on the tip of my tongue during the rest of the trial, and ever since.
On our last day in Venice, we went to the tiny island of Torcello to see the mosaics. Tom was quiet on the boat, but I imagined he was lost, like me, in the sight of the city disappearing behind us. One is never sure, in Venice, what is reality and what reflection, and when seen from the back of a vaporetto, the whole place looks like a mirage, floating in an impossible mist. The silence of Torcello was a shock after the continuous clanging of bells, coffee cups and tour guides that is San Marco. Neither of us spoke as we entered the basilica. Had I overdone it on the culture front? I wondered. Would Tom rather have spent the afternoon drinking Bellinis in Harry’s Bar? We looked at the glittering reds and golds of the Last Judgement. Those doomed to hell were pushed down by devil’s spears. Some were consumed by flames, some by wild beasts. The most unlucky did the job themselves, eating their own hands, finger by finger.
Tom stood there for a long time, looking at the awful corner into which the sinners had been shoved. Still he said not one word. I felt myself begin to panic at the thought of going back to England. At the thought of being apart. At the thought of sharing him. I found myself clasping his arm, searching his face, saying his name. ‘We can’t go back,’ I said.
He patted my hand. Smiled a rather cool, amused smile. ‘Patrick,’ he said. ‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Don’t make me go back.’
He sighed. ‘We have to go back.’
‘Why?’
He looked to the ceiling. ‘You know why.’
‘Tell me. I seem to have forgotten. Other people do this. Other people live in Europe, together. They leave, they have happy lives …’
‘You have a good job in England. So do I. I can’t speak Italian. We both have friends, family … We can’t live here.’
He sounded so calm, so conclusive. My comfort, still, is that he did not mention her. Not once did he say, Because I’m a married man.
A letter from Mother.
My dear Tricky,
I have come to a decision. When you are released, I want you to come and live here with me. It will be like old times. Only better, because your father won’t be here. You can have EVERY freedom you desire. I ask only for your company at mealtimes, and for a glass or two after that. As for what the neighbours think – hang them, I say.
Forgive the ramblings of an old lady.
Your ever-loving
Mother
PS I hope you know I would visit were it not for doctor’s orders. But it is NOTHING for you to worry about.
The terrifying thing is, at the moment this seems like a very good offer.
Marion came to visit today.
I’d spent all night wondering whether to stand her up. Let her come and wait, gloves trembling, perfectly set hair beginning to dampen with sweat. Let her wait with the painted wives of con men, the screaming children of cosh boys, the disappointed mothers of the sexually perverse. And let her be the one who has to turn and leave, her presence rejected.
But in the morning, I knew I would do nothing of the sort.
Burkitt took me to the visiting room at three. I’d made no effort to look decent. In fact, I shaved particularly badly that morning and was glad of my cuts and grazes. Some rather pathetic wish to shock her, I suppose. Perhaps I even wanted to gain her sympathy.
As soon as I saw her – she was alone, face lined with fear – disappointment flooded me. Where is he? I wanted to scream. Why isn’t he here, instead of you? Where’s my darling?
‘Hello, Patrick,’ she said.
‘Marion.’
I sat on the metal chair opposite her. The visiting room – small, fairly bright, but just as cold as the rest of this place – smelled of Harpic and stale milk. There were four other visits going on, Burkitt watching over each. Marion stared at me very intently, her eyes unblinking, and I realised she was trying to focus exclusively on the spectacle of Patrick Hazlewood, prisoner, rather than watching the scene unfolding next to us, where man and wife were desperately grappling at each other’s knees beneath the table. In a strange attempt to afford us privacy, a radio tuned to some inane quiz show on the Light Programme played at mid-volume. Fingers on buzzers, please … Here’s your starter question …
Marion removed her gloves and placed them on the table. Her fingernails were painted a lurid orange, which surprised me. And now that I really looked at her, I could tell she was wearing much more make-up than was usual, too. Her eyelids were covered with some shiny substance. Her lips were a plasticky-looking shade of pink. Unlike me, she’d obviously made quite an effort. But the overall effect wasn’t much superior to that which the Scrubs queens manage. And all they have is flour paste and poster paint.
She folded the sleeves of her mustard-coloured cardigan back and patted her collar down. Her face was pale and composed but a red rash spattered her throat. ‘It’s good to see you,’ she said.
Just from the way she’d arranged her features – in a look of distant, respectful sympathy – I knew she’d no message from Tom. The woman had nothing for me at all. Rather, I realised, it was she who wanted something from me.
‘I don’t know how to begin,’ she said.
I offered no assistance.
‘I can’t tell you how awful I feel about what’s happened.’ She swallowed. ‘It was a complete miscarriage of justice. Coleman should be in here, not you.’
I nodded.
‘It’s a scandal, Patrick.’
‘I know that,’ I burst out. ‘I’ve already received a letter from the museum, relieving me of my duties. And one from my landlord, letting me know my flat has been rented to a very nice family from Shoreham. Only my mother swears she’s not ashamed of me. Isn’t that funny?’
‘I didn’t mean … I meant it’s a scandal that you should be in here …’
‘But I am a homosexual, Marion.’
She stared at the table.
‘And I wanted to have sex with Coleman. He looked rather pathetic in the courtroom, but I can assure you on the night we met he was anything but. Even if we never actually managed to perform the act itself, the intention was there. That’s enough, in the eyes of the law, to condemn a man. I was importuning.’ She was still looking at the table, but I was in full flow. ‘It’s grossly unfair, but that’s how it is. I believe there are committees, petitions, lobbyists and the like who are trying to get the law changed. But in the British mind, intimacy between two men is right up there with GBH, armed robbery and serious fraud.’
Marion rearranged her gloves. Looked around the room. Then said, ‘Are they treating you all right?’
‘It’s a bit like public school. And a lot like the army. Why did you come?’
She looked startled. ‘I – don’t know.’
There was a long pause. Eventually she tried: ‘How’s the food?’
‘Marion. For God’s sake tell me about Tom. How is he?’
‘He’s – all right.’
I waited. Imagined grabbing her shoulders and shaking the words out of her.
‘He’s left the force.’
‘Why?’
She looked at me as if I should know the answer without her having to spell it out.
‘I hope there wasn’t too much trouble,’ I mumbled.
‘He refused to discuss it. He just said he left before he was pushed.’
I nodded. ‘What will he do now?’
‘Security guard. At Allan West’s. It’s not as much money, but I’m still working …’ She broke off. Studied her orange nails. ‘He doesn’t know I’m here,’ she said.
‘Oh?’
A brittle laugh, a lift of the chin, a flash of that metallic eye shadow. ‘About time I had my own secrets, isn’t it?’
I said nothing.
She waved a hand in the air as if wiping away what she’d said. Apologised. ‘I didn’t come here to – go over what’s past.’
‘Past?’
‘Between you and Tom.’
‘One more minute,’ barked Burkitt.
Marion picked up her gloves and started fiddling with her handbag, gabbling something about coming again next month.
‘Don’t,’ I said, grabbing her wrist. ‘Ask Tom to come instead.’
She looked at my fingers on her skin. ‘You’re hurting me.’
Burkitt stepped forward. ‘No physical contact, Hazlewood.’
I removed my hand and she stood, dusting off her skirt.
‘I have to see him, Marion,’ I said. ‘Please ask him.’
She looked down at me, and I was surprised to see she was blinking back tears. ‘I’ll ask. But he won’t come,’ she said. ‘You must see that he can’t. I’m sorry.’
Bert says: Talk, then.
We’re in the Old Rec after supper. Some men are managing to play a limp game of table tennis, despite the freezing conditions. Others, like me and Bert, are leaning on the wall furthest from the stinking lavatory, talking. Most are hunched over with cold, clutching their capes around themselves or blowing futilely on chilblained fingers. Davies told me recently that the best way to deal with chilblains is to wrap them in a piss-soaked rag. I’ve yet to try this myself. The Light Programme blares from the set in the corner. Usually these sessions where I entertain Bert with my wit, erudition and knowledge are the highlight of my day. But today I don’t feel like telling him about the plot of Othello, the Battle of Hastings (about which I know very little but have, on previous occasions, managed almost to re-enact for Bert, such was my enthusiasm), the works of Rembrandt or even Italian cuisine (Bert loves to hear about my trips to Firenze, and almost drooled when I described to him the joys of tagliatelle with hare sauce). I don’t feel like saying anything at all. Because all I can think about is Tom. Tom, who will not be coming to visit.
‘Talk, then,’ Bert says. ‘What are you waiting for?’
There’s an edge to his voice. It’s a reminder of who this man is: the tobacco baron. The unofficial leader of D Hall. This man always gets what he wants. He knows nothing else.
‘Have you heard of Thomas Burgess?’ I ask. ‘The policeman from Brighton?’
‘Nah. Why would I?’
‘His is a very interesting story.’
‘I know enough about the filth already. What about a bit more on Shakespeare? The tragedies. I love tragedies.’
‘Oh, this is a tragedy. One of the best.’
He looks dubious but says, ‘Go on, then. Surprise me.’
I draw a deep breath. ‘Thomas – Tom to his friends – was a policeman with a problem.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘He wasn’t a bad policeman. He turned up on time, did his job to the best of his abilities, tried to be fair.’
‘Don’t sound like any copper I know.’
‘That’s because he wasn’t like any other copper. He was interested in the arts, in books and music. He wasn’t an intellectual – his education meant he couldn’t be that – but he was intelligent.’
‘Like me.’
I ignore this. ‘And he was very handsome. He looked like one of the Greek statues in the British Museum. He loved to swim in the sea. His body was strong and lithe. His hair was golden and curled.’
‘Sounds like a bloody queer.’
A few other men have gathered around to listen. ‘That’s what he was,’ I say, keeping my voice even. ‘That was Tom’s problem.’
Bert shakes his head. ‘Fucking filth. I don’t think I want to hear no more, Hazlewood.’
‘It was his problem, but it was also his joy,’ I continue. ‘Because he met a man, an older man, whom he liked very much. This older man took Tom to the theatre, to art galleries and the opera, and opened up an entirely new world to him.’
The muscles in Bert’s face have stopped moving. His eyes flicker.
‘Tom liked to listen to this man talk, just as you like to listen to me. He took a wife, but that meant nothing. He continued to see the older man as much as he could. Because Tom and the older man loved each other very much.’
Bert comes up close to me. ‘Why don’t we change the fucking subject, mate.’
But I don’t stop talking. I can’t stop. ‘They loved each other. But the man was sent to prison on a trumped-up charge because he’d been careless. Tom’s pride and his fear stopped him from ever seeing the man again. Despite this, the man went on loving him. He will always love him.’
All the time I talk, more men gather round, summoned by Bert’s silent rage. And I know they’ll have made sure the screw is looking the other way whilst Bert punches me quietly in the stomach until I fall to the floor. I’m talking all the time, even as the punches take the air from my body. He’ll always love him, I say. Over and over. Then Bert’s kicking me in the chest and someone else is kicking me in the back and I cover my face with my fists but it does no good because the blows keep coming. And still I’m getting the words out. He’ll always love him. And I remember the time Tom came to the flat and was so angry with me for lying to him about the portrait and I imagine it’s him kicking me again and again and again and I keep whispering his name until I no longer feel anything at all.