A Five Year Sentence (22 page)

She drew the curtains and lit the candles, but this time she had to admit that there was less pleasure in their exchange. She was anxious to get it over with, to spend her money quickly, so that he would go away and leave her alone to tick off the little order in the book. More and more she realised that this act was the major pleasure of her life as well as its prime justification. She didn't particulary want to marry Brian. She was wedded to her diary, a union as tyrannous as it was pleasurable. But the diary couldn't support her. It couldn't replace her furniture or underwrite her weekly expenditure. In any case, it would soon have run its course, and Brian was its only possible replacement. ‘D'you promise you'll find a way?' she said.

‘To what?'

It was clear even to the gullible Miss Hawkins that Brian found the whole matrimonial prospect faintly resistible. ‘To marrying me,' she said, wearily brazen.

‘Of course I promise,' he said, ‘we'll find a way. Don't you worry.'

‘Where will we live?' she said, then before he could answer, ‘I'd like you to move in here. But we'll need a bit more furniture.'

What the hell, he thought, he might as well play her along totally. ‘That'll be very cosy,' he said. ‘And when your tin-ship comes home, we'll re-furnish completely.' By then he would be
safely installed on Violet's velvet cushions well out of the Hawkins' reach or pleading. He was filled with utter contempt for her measly provincialism and he stretched over and pocketed the last silver pile. ‘Till next Monday then,' he said getting up.

‘Perhaps you'll have news for me then,' she said.

‘Nothing's going to happen in a week,' he said. ‘But don't you worry, I'll think of something.'

His assurances should have appeased her, but somehow her anxieties remained. It wasn't that she didn't believe him. She was sure that he would do his best to find some solution, but there was no doubt that his mother was a formidable obstacle. They could only wait for her to die. She wished suddenly that she seriously believed in God so that she could offer a sincere prayer for Mrs Watts' painless passing, bearing in mind that if she hung about much longer it would be at the cost of two people's happiness, and in God's reputed fairness, He would be judge. She saw Brian to the door, and stood there looking after him up the street. In her worried weariness, even the ticking appetite had deserted her, and it was a full five minutes before she left the porch and returned to the kitchen.

The diary lay on the table. She was faintly surprised that it was still locked. Had it been lying open it would have been almost as she expected. Her life had taken on such a pervading unreality, that she no longer felt herself personally responsible for any turn of events. She looked around her denuded home and could not accept that she herself had stripped it. For a brief moment she recalled her pre-Brian days, when her nest-egg thrived cosily in the bank, when her accrued possessions hugged her like a womb, when the green book was locked and orderless. She looked back on those days with longing, and she wondered how, and on whose behalf, such confusion had invaded her nest. She tried to concentrate on her Monday pleasures, trying to see in them fair compensation for her loss. But now they appeared to her wasteful, disgusting even, and obscene, and she remembered matron's terrible prophecy. She had been right. She was indeed a fallen and penniless woman. At the thought of matron, and especially at the thought that she had proved so exact, Miss
Hawkins rushed to the sitting-room, reaching automatically for her knitting, then froze with fear as she recalled that it was no longer there. That disappearance too was an unreality outside her own making and it left her defenceless and unarmed against the searing memories of her childhood. She was loathe to look for the scarf. She feared that, even if she found it, she could not accommodate the shape or texture it might have assumed. The scarf had colonised her almost as tyrannously as the diary, and her need for them both was equally obsessive. She could not bear to be in the house any longer. She needed the proximity of another human being, she needed to partake of some human enterprise, to re-assure herself of the existence of a certain reality, and that given a chance, she would recognise it. She rushed to the wardrobe for her coat. And there, swinging its overburdened length from the skeleton hanger, hung the scarf, its needles upturned in one of her shoes. And in its hanging shadow, she saw Morris. She was not frightened, for after all, that was what the scarf was all about, a multi-coloured winding-sheet for an unburied grief. It was right and proper that Morris had appeared for a fitting. What did frighten her though, was a total non-recollection of putting it there. Why on earth should she change its normal resting-place? It had taken itself there, she was sure. It had hung itself snugly next to her coat, as if it had in mind to go somewhere, to seek and find some target for its accumulated rainbow spleen. She smiled, not knowing why, or understanding the sudden stab of pleasure its discovery had given her. Tenderly she took it down from its hanger and folded it, admiring its proud enduring length. It crossed her mind to cast off the stitches and hope that her occasional anger would subsequently abate. But she needed it, only a little longer, she thought, until Brian would take her hand and give her peace.

She took the coloured folds and gently placed them in the bottom of her large shopping basket. Thenceforward the scarf would accompany her everywhere. Before leaving the house, she looked again in her diary. She was free of orders for the rest of the day having already dutifully acquitted herself. She flicked through the remaining years' pages. And though she felt it was
against all the rules to anticipate the future with any certainty, she turned the pages to her expected day of release. Just barely two months to go. She picked a small African violet that grew from a plant on the kitchen windowsill. Very gently she pressed it on to the page. By the time her sentence ended it would be dry and filigree-aged, a fitting farewell to her green-leathered bondage. As she was closing the book, she caught sight of the day of her freedom. It was Easter Monday.

Every subsequent Monday, Miss Hawkins was tempted to play her last alarming card. But the little green book withheld the order. Besides, she did not have the necessary service charge, but she feared that one day the diary would prescribe the offering and she would not have the wherewithal to obey. It was as well to be prepared. She looked about her. The only object left in the flat that could possibly fetch the required amount was the settee. To dispossess herself of that time-honoured accoutrement of service would be a major undertaking. And if she sold it, what then would serve as the altar for her supreme sacrifice? She knew it would have to be the bed, with Maurice tucked for shame underneath, but since that would be its future setting, she might as well get used to it. The location bothered her far less than the deed itself, and far less than its actual cost. She pictured her shy unmarried self in the attitude of wilful surrender, and recalling matron's promise of the purgatorial fire, she shuddered. She tried to attach less value to that gift on which all her life she had kept such a tight hold. In matron's terms she was already a fallen woman. For years now she had indulged her filthy pleasures, and sullied them further by payment. What difference now if she merely extended the range of her desire. So she tried to belittle herself, to rate as trash the last remnant of her virtue, but with all her reasoning, she could not deny its worth. If she hung on to it, it might not give her entry into heaven, but it would certainly help to save her from the fire. But then she thought Brian was sure to marry her, and no-one need ever know that the loss of her virtue was premature. God wasn't that clever. For a long time she weighed in her mind the advantages and disadvantages of the diary's possible order, and
in the process of her considerations, she grew more and more excited, and she regarded that as a sin too, and knew that no matter what she did, she was irretrievably damned. There no longer seemed to be any point in limitations.

She went to the kitchen and unlocked her diary. She flicked through the pages. Her release was barely three weeks hence, and the African violet had already wept its bondage dry. The proximity of the date frightened her. She had so much to achieve in so short a time. She turned the pages back to the day's date. And boldly she wrote, ‘Sold the Settee.'

She wrote out a little notice giving its description, and taking care to state the required price of £50. She took it straightaway to the newsagent's, and returned quickly in order to make full use of her last solid possession while there was still time. But first she took Maurice off the wall and leant him against the corner of the settee. Then she snuggled up beside him. ‘Maurice,' she said, ‘only another few weeks to my wedding.' She looked up at him, and had to adjust herself so that he could see her and hear her properly. And when he did, she thought he looked at her disbelievingly. ‘It's true,' she said angrily. ‘You just wait and see.' Now he looked angry too, and he began to get on her nerves with his lack of enthusiasm. She was going to tell him about the settee and why she was selling it, but she didn't think he deserved her confidence. But she had to tell someone. She had to air the terrible words, as if by confession, the deed itself would absolve her. ‘He'll
have
to marry me, Maurice,' she said defiantly. ‘You know why, don't you? It's because I'm going to …' She stopped, choking on the blasphemous words. ‘Well, you know what I mean,' she said.

He looked at her, his moustache drooping. She wanted to bash his face in. She turned her back on him and sulked into the cushion. She couldn't bear Maurice's disapproval. She ought never to have told him. He had been deeply disappointed in her. She turned round quickly. ‘I was only joking,' she said, and she saw him smile with relief. At the time she meant it. She, Miss Jean Hawkins, would remain a maiden until her wedding night, but during Brian's service she would assume the role of someone
else, an act of sacrifice that was not hers, but performed on behalf of another whom she would gladly consign to the fire. She would be proxy for matron, she decided, and whether she was dead or alive, God would take careful note, and kindle the flame. It would be a joy to attend such a service. She was delighted with her new-found solution, and she leaned towards Maurice and embraced him. ‘Can't take a joke, can you?' she said.

The following day, while she was polishing what little furniture was left in her flat, the bell rang. She took off her apron and answered the door.

‘You have a settee for sale,' the man said.

She started. She had forgotten her little notice. She hadn't slept most of the night and now she recollected what had been nagging her. ‘Yes,' she said hopelessly. ‘Come in.'

He followed her into the sitting-room. He loosened his scarf, and she saw with gathering dismay that by his collar, he was a priest of sorts, and she was tempted to grasp his sleeve and beg absolution. How could she take money from a man of God in order to buy herself a sure ticket to hell. She wanted to tell him that the settee was not for sale, that she'd changed her mind, but he was already appraising it, fingering the moquette caressing it as if it pleased him well. ‘We're building a little community centre,' he said. ‘For the old people, you know. We need a lot of comfortable chairs. There's no better way to serve our Lord than in the care of the old and lonely.'

Oh my God, she thought, if only he knew to what iniquities that settee had been witness, in what heathen delights it had played such a pleasured role. She almost begged him not to touch it.

‘I like it,' he said with a happy unbearable innocence, ‘but it's a little more than the kitty can afford. Can you sell it a little cheaper?'

She wanted to give it to him, as a way of cleansing herself, as an atonement, but such largesse was impracticable for one only bent on further trespass.

‘I need £50,' she said simply.

He looked at the fireside chair. ‘Are you thinking of selling that too?' he said.

It would leave her with nowhere at all to sit, but her scarf no longer needed that resting-place, and she was happy to throw it in for nothing.

‘That's very kind of you,' the cloth said.

She looked round frantically for anything else that would help furnish his centre. ‘Is there anything else you want?' she said.

‘Are you moving?' he said, noting the overall bareness of the room.

‘Yes,' she said brightly, ‘I'm getting married. We're moving to the country.'

‘Congratulations,' he said. ‘That's happy news.' And almost in the same breath, ‘Are you taking your dining-table with you?'

‘No, you can have that too,' she said. ‘It'll come in handy for the old people.' God must surely be Listening, she thought, and taking note, and marking up her credits.

‘You're much too kind,' he said.

‘It's to celebrate my wedding,' she laughed, thinking that Maurice and she would henceforth have to eat off the floor.

He paid her £50 in crisp £5 notes, saying that he would send a van in the afternoon. He blessed her for her kindness, and wished her well in her marriage. Miss Hawkins felt little scruple in having hoodwinked him. She had, after all, given him more or less what was left of her home. She decided that in the evening, she and Maurice would have a last supper together. In three days Brian would come, and during that time, she would prepare matron for her eternal damnation.

On Monday morning, Miss Hawkins woke up screaming. In her dream, there had been no location, no people, and no sign of life or habitation. Just sound. The sound of bells that had begun as a gentle tinkle, almost inaudible. She'd strained her ears, and in response, the volume increased and assumed a hint of a melody which she half recognised as wedding chimes. She
smiled and listened, urging them with her humming, until they pealed out, piercing the bright void with their nuptial message. Unmistakable. She lay back and listened, as the whole invisible world tolled her freedom. The morning would bring her wedding day, not in the Law's mind perhaps, but certainly in Brian's and her own. His service to her would conscript him into matrimony, and the bells rang out their sanction. And rang and rang, faster and louder, and so fast and so loud that the melody stumbled as the speed and volume overtook it in a cacophonous and deafening din. Her head had become the bell-tower of a great cathedral, and the noise pierced her ear-drums, and she awoke screaming with the stab of pain. She got up quickly. She wished she could miss out on this day, that some proxy would swallow it on her behalf, that next morning she could wake and survey the ruins or otherwise of her aching hopes. Knowing what she had to do, and knowing too that there was no alternative, deeply depressed her, and wandering through her bare and desolate home did little to raise her hopes. There's nothing for it, she thought, there's no longer anything to lose. The final humiliation, if such it turned out to be, would belong to matron. With this thought she steeled herself to dressing and making breakfast. She would need all her strength for this day. When she had eaten, she set about to clean the flat. In its denuded state, it did not take her very long. She spent most of the time in her bedroom, changing the linen and covering her shameful stratagem with her best counterpane. She wondered whether she should turn the bed down. She considered that that was part of the service, and Brian's department. She would be glad to leave it to him. She could contribute nothing more. She would pay the price, shut her eyes tightly, invoke matron, and unlock her sensible legs. She shut the door quickly behind her. For some reason she could not bear to stay in the room.