A Five Year Sentence (21 page)

‘One day a week on a Sunday,' Violet suggested, ‘we shall both give our services free to the other.' It was a clever move. The appetite must be fed, she knew, else it would atrophy completely.

Brian agreed readily, though he did not understand her motives. He could be sure of at least one day that, though unprofitable, would cost him nothing.

‘Would you like to leave the wedding arrangements to me?' she said.

He was glad to. She had, after all, been through it once before. ‘Just let me pay all the bills,' he said.

‘I think Easter Monday's a good day.'

He nodded, though Monday rang a distinctly irritating bell. It was Hawkins' day, and it would mark the first Monday in many years that he would not spend with her. Yet he would serve her diligently and every week until that time, with promises for their united future, and tin-avoidance. And he would arrange to see her on the Easter Monday too, and as she was sipping her courage port, her neat piles of silver coin on the table, the curtains drawn and the candles flickering, shivering for his ring on the front door, he would be well on his way to Casablanca, or wherever Violet's cousin had in mind, and he would be rid of her leaden sponge and her uncut moquette for ever.

He rose to take his leave. ‘I'll see you tomorrow as usual,' he said. ‘If you'll be needing me.'

‘I'm sure I'll find the odd little thing for you to do,' she teased.

He kissed her goodbye. A free special.

When he got home, he took out his ledger and looked up the Hawkins account. He totted up her three-year expenditure. It came to £1,255. Reckoning on £5 until his wedding day, he would be in her debt for over £1,300. And though he had no means, and even less intention of repaying her, he derived some satisfaction from knowing the exact sum of money the poor
woman would never see again. It amounted to about half of the sums he had received from other clients in less than half the time. Serves her right, he thought, for being so cheese-paring.

Over the next few weeks, Miss Hawkins' flat took on a distinctly unfurnished look, as if it were untenanted, and every time she returned home, she wondered where it would all end. She consoled herself with the thought that her sentence was nearing its close and the automatic handmaid of her freedom was marriage. Then, in time, the accumulated interest on her tin would replace the furniture, and Brian would look after her for the rest of her life. There was no doubt in her mind that only shyness delayed his proposal. Perhaps she should encourage him more. She had bought a fresh bottle of port, a different brand this time, a vintage one, the shop assistant had assured her, and much more potent. Perhaps it would bring her luck. She was due for servicing that afternoon. The shop assistant's promise would be put to the test.

She had already sold her trolley, so she had to set out the service paraphernalia on the dining-table. Maurice looked down on the sponge and the bottle of port with faint disapproval, so she removed him from the wall. It was enough that she should judge herself, without any eye-witness accusation. She took him into the bedroom without looking at him, for she was suddenly ashamed. And in her shame, she became angry. She looked around for her knitting. It was not in its usual place, trailing its serpentine spleen from the small fireside chair that lay always within reach of her fury. And without looking anywhere else, she was acutely aware of panic, of a sense of terrible loss and desertion. She stood rigid in the middle of the room. She had a distinct impression of another presence in the flat, a manipulator, someone who wrote orders in her diary, someone who was selling off her furniture, and now, as a last straw, had spirited
away her anger-machine. ‘Hullo,' she called out, and the echo resounded from the void where a sideboard once stood, and a cupboard, and a bookcase and all the bankrupt spaces of the room. She needed desperately to find the scarf, but at the same time she was terrified of looking for it. She knew it wasn't lost, but she feared the state in which it would be found, for she was sure it had unravelled its unending fury out of a sense of its own futility. For a moment she dared to allow herself to envisage a Brian-less future, and the thought of the penniless possessionless years that it entailed, was shattering. She rushed to her diary and opened it on the current page. ‘Proposed to Brian,' she wrote, not wholly aware of the matter of her words, but knowing it as the only solution to all her problems. She returned to the sitting-room, and sat down stiffly, her legs firmly crossed and trying not to think of the scarf, trying not to notice the unfamiliar and aching gaps around her, and not daring to think of what the diary had ordered. For all were stratagems of which she had no part, the machinations of a power outside herself, the promptings of the stealthy shadow of her own despair.

When the doorbell rang, she almost feared to answer it. If she refused to admit Brian, then she couldn't propose to him, and that would be a disobedience of the diary's order. For how could she propose to someone who just wasn't there? The bell rang again, rather faintly and without appetite, and she feared that if she didn't answer right away, he would leave, and possibly she would never see him again. At this thought, she bounded to her slippered feet and arrived at the front door breathless. Brian took her panting for lust, and a possible sign that after so many years she had decided to take the final plunge. She led him into the sitting-room.

If Brian noticed the denuded furnishings, he did not show it. His eye went straight to the piles of silver coin, and by their height, he gauged them as normal. In a way he was relieved. In view of his long-term plans for poor Miss Hawkins, he was glad not to be offered her most valued possession, which year by year gathered worth like an antique. The leaden sponge sank on its
plate on the table, and just looking at it gave him indigestion. He noticed that the label on the bottle was different. So, in a way, was Miss Hawkins' demeanour. The timidity was absent, and she looked almost angry. He began to fear that this meeting would be a turning point in their affairs and that she would pin him down, once and for all, on his fraudulent tin, wanting to know its name on the market, its present price, and the exact profits accrued over the years. He wanted very much to go away, but it was now too late to withdraw.

‘I haven't much time today, I'm afraid,' he said. ‘My mother's not very well. In fact,' he said, ‘would you mind if I came tomorrow? It would be much more convenient.'

‘Yes, I do mind,' she said. ‘I'm busy tomorrow. All day.' She couldn't postpone her diary's order. And she kept worrying about the scarf and the gaps in the room. And she began to dislike Brian too, and with all these feelings of anxiety and displeasure, it was difficult to produce the accents that should accompany a proposal of marriage. She helped herself to some port, and went into the kitchen to make the tea.

The diary lay open in front of the tea-caddy, though she could have sworn she had closed it, as she always did, for part of the pleasure of ticking, was to open the book and find the right page, all teasing acts to postpone the thrill of climax. She saw the current order and knew that she had no alternative but to carry it out. She closed the book and locked it, then she manufactured a smile and carried in the tea.

He had drawn the curtains and lit the candles. She thought she would wait for the service to begin before plighting her troth on his shy behalf, since the words might then seem a natural result of his paid affections. She passed him his tea and cake, and sensing her unease, he decided to cheer her up. ‘I think we're due for another anniversary, my dear, you and I. Shall we drink to that?' He raised his cup and smiled at her, and she thought that he surely was on the brink of proposal. She waited, the cup to her lips, smiling. ‘To my first and only customer,' he said.

She sipped some tea and waited again. He patted the settee
beside him. She sat down, crossing her ankles and hovering on his next utterance. ‘And what service does my ladyship want today?' he said. He put a gratis hand on her knee. The thought crossed Miss Hawkins' mind that for the first time, she would actively disobey an order. It ran too much of a risk of his refusal, and he might never come again. And these were not pleasures she could easily forgo. Yet on the other hand, there was no talk of her investment, and there was little enough left for her to live on. She took a deep breath and removed his hand. ‘Brian,' she said.

He gulped on his tea, and the resultant coughing fit postponed the showdown that he feared. He couldn't go on coughing for ever, but at least he'd stalled her prepared moment. ‘Give me a minute,' he spluttered.

She took away his cup, grinding her teeth, doubting that she could find the courage for a second attempt. She waited for the coughing to subside, then she handed him a little port. ‘That'll soothe your throat,' she said, ‘Sip it gently.'

He took it gratefully. Sickly as it was, it would prolong the delay, and give him time to think of a reason why she shouldn't be told the name of her shares. She hadn't given him much port, he noticed. Even with the tiniest sips it soon had to come to an end. Besides, she was standing over him, waiting for him to drain the glass. Then she sat down again, with a determined look on her face that indicated that she was not in the least bit thrown by the coughing interruption. He trembled.

‘Brian,' she said again.

‘What is it, my dear?'

‘I think it's silly for us to go on like this.'

For a moment there was a glimmer of hope. Was she, of her own accord, giving him the push? But then he realised that if that were the case, she would want to finalise her account. ‘Why not?' he said. ‘Don't you enjoy it?'

‘Oh yes. I enjoy it very much.'

‘Well, what is it then? Why can't we go on as before?'

‘I would like something on a more permanent basis,' she said. Now it was out, or almost all of it, enough to merit at least half a tick in the diary.

‘But we
are
permanent,' he said. ‘I've been coming here every Monday for over three years.'

It was clear to her that he'd not got the message and again she feared his refusal. ‘I don't mean that,' she said.

‘Then what do you mean?' He regretted his question the moment it was out. He knew very well what she meant and he had given her carte blanche for a proposal.

And she took it readily. ‘Brian,' she said.

He thought it was such a silly name, and the way she said it made it sound even sillier. She whined it like a cry of pain.

‘I'm proposing to you,' she said.

‘Proposing what?' It was his last pathetic stand for delay.

‘Marriage.'

The word echoed round the empty spaces of the room finding no obstacle that might have muted its doomed reverberation. Marriage. It was an offer of nothing but her impoverished availability. She unlocked her ankles, satisfied that she had done her duty. The tick was secure, which was more than she could at present say of her future. She hovered for his reply.

Again he temporised, taking her hand, his mind an utter blank.

‘Well, what d'you think?' she said, encouraged by the hand-holding.

‘Don't think I haven't thought of it,' he said, ‘many times.' Now having spilt the first falsehood, it was easy to elaborate and he set off on a whirl of lies and fabrication, with a certain secret enjoyment, though he was careful to maintain a look of worried helplessness. ‘I just don't know how I can manage it,' he said. ‘It's my poor mother.' He tried not to think of her lapped in Petunia luxury, and probably at this very moment relishing the hot buttered scones of a Petunia tea. ‘I couldn't leave her,' he said.

‘You could put her in a home.'

He smiled. ‘I couldn't afford that,' he said.

‘But there are homes on the National Health,' she protested.

‘No,' he said, with determination. ‘I couldn't bring myself to put her in one of those.' He saw her lip curl in anger, and he
regretted the finality of his declaration, fearing that she would jettison all her marital hopes, and in their stead, make a desperate move to get her money back. ‘But don't give up hope,' he said quickly. ‘I'll work something out. I promise I will.'

She didn't quite see what he had in mind, but she was afraid to ask for details in case it would seem like nagging. ‘Are you sure it's only your mother?' she dared to ask.

She had given him a clue for another objection, and he was quick to grasp it.

‘Well,' he said, ‘it's a bit difficult to put into words.'

‘Go on,' she said, encouraging. She was prepared to be anything for him, do anything for him, to remove whatever obstacle he had in mind. He for his part had hit upon the very stumbling block that he confidently knew Miss Hawkins would never surmount. ‘I know we've known each other for a long time,' he said, ‘but, well – well, we don't know each other all that well.' He couldn't say ‘intimately'. It was too brash and allowed for no misinterpretion. He preferred to leave it ambiguously in the air, so that she could do what she wished with it. And though Miss Hawkins knew perfectly well what he meant, she pretended it was beyond her understanding, so beyond in fact, that there was no point in elucidating. She quickly changed the subject. ‘Will you have another cup of tea?' she said, and as she poured she understood exactly what she had to do to win Brian's hand. She was delighted that the solution was so abundantly clear, yet the thought of its execution was devastating. But not today. The diary had not ordered it, and in any case, she didn't have that kind of money, and no means of getting it she thought, as she looked round the room evaluating what was left of her chattels. If her eye rested on the settee, she told herself she was looking at Brian. That's all she was doing, she said to herself, simply because he was sitting there. ‘I've got five pounds to spend,' she said, like a child in a toy-shop. It was what a dealer had given her for a gold armistice medal that was found around her neck when the wrapped-up bundle of her was delivered to the Sacred Heart Orphanage. It was sufficient evidence to prove to matron that the infant had been sired by a common soldier with the
help of an even commoner camp-follower, and the medallion was never removed so that it should serve as a reminder of the nothingness from which she came. Miss Hawkins had worn it most of her life, thinking that it was probably a birth-mark. Until one day at the factory when the fudge-wrapper foreman saw it as an opportunity for mamillary investigation and whipped it out of her cleavage. His interest in the medal soon superceded that of its nestling-place, and he turned it over and over with envy. ‘Worth quite a bit, that is,' he said. That day Miss Hawkins took it off her neck as much for its value as to discourage further lecherous probings. She kept it in a little box on her dressing-table, her only clue to her parentage. Now she had sold it for her pleasure. According to matron's standards, her parents would have been proud of her.