‘Good lad,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll get yer pill.’
He went out again. Frank thought, I won’t take it, I’ll pretend to but I won’t. I need to think hard, I must think. He felt a stab of pain in his bad hand. He had been
clutching the chair-arm so tightly he had hurt it; the damaged fingers were tingling.
Later the older attendant, Sam, the one who had taken Frank to see the policemen, came to fetch him to dinner. Ben had come back and given him his pill with a glass of water.
It was easy to slip it under his tongue and then as soon as the attendant turned to put it in his pocket. He needed to be awake, alert, not let himself be taken by surprise.
‘C’mon, Muncaster,’ Sam said impatiently. ‘Time for dinner. Along to the dining hall.’
‘All right.’
Sam led him down the corridor to the dining room. ‘You’ve had a busy day.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did them coppers want?’
‘Just a new inspector wanting to go over the case.’
‘That older one, fair-haired, was he English?’
Frank looked at Sam, alert. ‘I don’t know. He hardly spoke.’
Sam said, ‘I saw him in the corridor and wondered if he was German. They hold themselves stiffly, even a fat man like that. If they’re soldiers, or officials. I was in a German
prisoner-of-war camp in the Great War, y’know. Hard lot. Still, them’s what’s been needed to sort out the mess Europe was in, I suppose.’ He looked at Frank curiously.
‘He didn’t speak, you say?’
‘Hardly at all.’ Frank feigned disinterest.
His mind was in a whirl, though, as Sam led him into the dining room with its smell of overcooked vegetables, crowded with long tables. The patients queued along the wall by the serving hatch,
watched by Sam and two other attendants. Frank joined them, still desperately trying to fathom what might be going on. Had Edgar confessed to the American authorities about what he had let slip to
Frank? But surely the Americans wouldn’t involve the British, still less the Germans.
‘Wake up, Muncaster,’ Sam said. ‘Join the queue or the food’ll be gone.’
Frank felt trapped, like a rat in a cage. He took a tray to the hatch and received a plate of greyish liver and soggy vegetables, with lumpy mashed potatoes served from an ice-cream scoop. As he
turned towards the tables a loud crash made him jump. A middle-aged, grey-haired man had turned and thrown his plate of food to the floor. The other patients looked on with mild interest; such
things often happened. A burly attendant ran across, grabbing the man’s arm roughly. ‘Jack, what the fuck d’you think you’re doing!’
‘I won’t eat this food!’ the patient shouted. ‘There’s things in it, chemicals to sterilize us! I won’t!’
‘Shut up, you silly bastard! There’s nothing in the food! If you don’t want your dinner, you can damn well do without. Come on, back to the ward.’ The attendant hauled
the man away, who was wailing like a child now.
Frank sat opposite Patrick, a fat little man in his thirties with a dirty black beard. He was one of those who hardly spoke, spending most of his time in the day room staring at the television.
The senior attendant said Grace, gabbling quick thanks to God for the food He had provided. It was one of the hospital rules. The patients picked up their knives and forks; the knife blades were
kept so blunt, and the forks had such short tines, that Frank had found them hard to use at first. He forced himself to pick at the watery mess on his plate. He thought, surely David couldn’t
be working with the Germans. But he was a civil servant, he worked for the government.
‘People are getting the wind up,’ Patrick said suddenly. ‘This new Act of Parliament.’
Frank looked at him in surprise. Patrick’s eyes were clear and alert. It sometimes happened like that, someone who spent weeks shuffling around in silence would suddenly say something
sensible and you realized there was a real person hidden in there.
‘Poor old Jack,’ Patrick continued. ‘He’s got the wind up about the sterilizations. Got put in here when he was seventeen for fiddling about with his sister. Did you know
that?’
‘No. He’s been here ever since?’
‘Oh yes.’ And then Patrick abruptly seemed to lose interest, bending to chase a piece of rubbery liver about his plate.
Frank overheard some other patients talking about the Jews being deported from the cities. Apparently there was going to be some announcement on the television and afterwards they went to watch
Mosley’s broadcast in the day room. The Fascist leader’s calm explanation of the latest and worst thing they had done only intensified Frank’s growing sense of fear. Afterwards
people sat talking listlessly about the deportations, some saying it was overdue, others that it was cruel, many not seeming really to register it. Frank crept back to the quiet room. He paced up
and down. He felt worse than ever, as though ants were crawling over his skin. He thought of taking his pill after all but he didn’t. He had to be able to think. He breathed fast, on the edge
of panic, his mind whirling. Was that policeman a German? Were he and Ben and David in league? If so, what were they planning to do?
That night, on the ward, he was, like all the patients, given the usual double dose of Largactil to get him to sleep. Nonetheless he woke up in the small hours: sleeping patients all around him,
the night attendant reading at his lamplit desk. Frank thought again of suicide. If he was dead there was no way for his secret to come out, he would not be responsible for the terrible things that
might follow. He thought, I’d have defeated them, all this pain and fear will be over, I’ve no future anyway apart from existing in a place like this. And if the Germans got hold of me
. . .
Another day began: getting out of bed, dressing, being taken to breakfast. Sam was on duty again. After breakfast the patients went back to the day room for their pills. Frank took his from Sam
and again only pretended to swallow them. Sam said to him, ‘Dr Wilson wants to see you at ten, Muncaster. You’re to stay on the ward.’
In his panic Frank nearly swallowed the pill. He managed to mumble, ‘What about?’
‘Don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.’
The patients clustered round the television in the day room; there was a keep-fit programme on at nine, people in the world outside were crazy about keep-fit these days. Frank had heard the
patients talking about it in anticipation; there had been a preview, it was about the Butlins holiday camps’ exercise classes, there would be half-bare women stretching and bending. The men,
many of whom had barely seen a woman in years, smiled with anticipation as they sat down.
Frank went back into the quiet room. He pushed the door almost shut. The weather was foggy again, only grey misty shapes visible outside the windows. What did Wilson want? Was it to begin the
electric shocks? Was it to tell him the police would be taking him away? He stood looking at the big picture on the opposite wall, ‘The Stag at Bay’. Out of desperation an idea came to
him. With trembling steps he walked over to it. It was very heavy and with the limited power in his right hand it was difficult to unhook the picture, even standing on a hard chair which he dragged
across, but he managed it. His arms trembling with the effort, he carefully lowered it to the floor. He was bathed in sweat. He glanced nervously at the door to the day room, heard a cheerful
female announcer’s voice from the television. He saw that behind the picture, driven deep into the brickwork, was a large metal hook.
Frank stared at it. Again he thought,
I don’t want to die
. But he wouldn’t be doing it for himself, it would be to make sure he took his terrible secret with
him. He reached up and grasped the hook with both hands, letting his full weight rest on it. It didn’t move. He walked away, looked out of the window again. He took long, deep breaths,
wondering once more if he could have been mistaken about yesterday’s events. He thought, David and Geoff never liked the Nazis any more than I did. But he hadn’t seen David for over ten
years. In that time everything had changed. He thought, they and the policemen could be working together, trying to grind him down. And if they put real pressure on him he knew he would crack. He
thought of the things they said the Germans did to make people talk. He squeezed his eyes shut. He thought suddenly of his father, his death in action. If he did this it would be a heroic act like
his. Outside, he heard ribald laughter. He walked back to the hook. Blood thundered in his ears. There wasn’t much time before they came and took him to Dr Wilson. Quickly he took off his
jacket, then his crumpled shirt. He wound the shirt into a long strip of thick cloth. It was difficult but he made a clumsy noose. He stood on the chair in his vest and tied one end of the shirt
tightly around the hook. He was completely determined now, like a soldier going over the top in the trenches. He stood on the chair and put the home-made noose round his neck. He bent his legs so
it drew tight, taking all his weight. It held. Then he jumped.
T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
D
AVID LEFT
for work as usual. The weather was still cold, the sky a leaden grey; fog was forecast for later.
It felt strange, after all that had happened since Friday, to be walking to the station, catching the Monday morning tube with the other commuters.
On Sunday night, after the broadcast about the Jews, David and Sarah had sat in the lounge in dismal, heavy silence. Sarah had had an urge to telephone Mrs Templeman’s husband, but knew
she mustn’t – she wasn’t even supposed to know her friend was dead. They both started when the telephone rang; it was Irene again, phoning to ask how Uncle Ted was and asking
about family arrangements for Christmas. Sarah sat on the hard chair by the telephone table, looking exhausted by the effort of trying to sound normal, lighting one cigarette from the butt of
another. They had both been smoking like chimneys since the broadcast; the air reeked. From her end of the conversation David gathered Irene had started talking about the Jews. Sarah began to sound
impatient. ‘How can you possibly say they’ll be kept comfortable – hauled out of their homes and marched off under guard, they’ll be terrified . . .’ Eventually Sarah
said wearily, ‘I don’t think there’s any point discussing it further, Irene.’ She banged the receiver back on the hook. ‘If she wants reassurance over that one,
she’s come to the wrong bloody shop!’
‘Careful what you say. Remember Steve’s Blackshirt chums.’
‘Oh, to hell with the lot of them,’ she snapped. In a way David was glad she had become angry; her strength of character was reasserting itself even if she obviously thought he was
being cold, overcautious. She came over to the settee again and they both sat staring at the blank television screen, chain-smoking, fearing the telephone ringing again, or worse, a knock at the
door.
Next day they were both red-eyed from sleeplessness, but they got up wearily and started the morning routine as usual. Over breakfast David asked Sarah if she was all right to
be left alone. She was in her dressing gown, pale and washed-out.
‘I’m supposed to phone round the toyshops this morning. I’ll find an excuse to phone Friends House as well, see if anything’s being said about poor Jane.’
‘Watch what you say.’
‘Of course I will.’
‘I’ll phone you from a call-box at lunchtime, see how you are.’
‘Why can’t you ring from the office?’
‘I’m just being careful.’
‘If you use that word again, I’ll scream.’
Travelling in on the crowded tube, strap-hanging, the previous day’s events kept crowding into David’s mind. Natalia had guessed his secret, the only person who
ever had. She had said she wouldn’t tell anyone but her loyalties were to the Resistance, not him. And what would happen now with Frank? And Sarah, he was placing her in more and more
danger.
People were reading the newspapers with unusual concentration. An elderly couple was talking in fierce undertones as they read. ‘Bastards. It’s wicked, evil. Makes you ashamed to be
British.’ They didn’t seem to care about being overheard. One or two people frowned at them, but most buried themselves deeper in their papers. The train went into a tunnel and David
caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window. He looked ravaged, exhausted. He must try and pull himself together.
For the first time, entering the Office, he didn’t feel it was a place of refuge. He had known for years that the service supported an evil government, had been irreparably contaminated by
it, but it was the first time he had actually felt it, deep in his bones.
In the lift two of his colleagues were discussing the effect the deportations would have on Dominion relations in the cool, detached Civil Service way, as though it were a more abstract
problem.
‘Of course our counter-argument will be that they’ve all closed doors to further Jewish immigration themselves, apart from New Zealand. They feel they’ve taken
enough.’
‘Yes. The pot calling the kettle black argument.’
‘Quite.’
‘They may raise the Palestine option again.’
‘Not going to happen, old boy. There’s just too many imponderables.’
‘Did you see there’s a new Resistance leaflet?’
‘No.’
‘Someone had scattered them on the floor of the tube on my line. Usual Churchill stuff – destroying our liberties, dividing the British people, who will be next? Plastered with
“V”s and “R”s. I thought, can you call the Jews British people?’
‘Well indeed? There you do have an interesting question of definition.’
‘I suppose there’ll be more strikes and riots with this one.’
‘It just gets worse all the time. I know Mosley wants reprisals, taking captured Resistance people’s families hostage, shooting one for every soldier and policeman killed.’
‘The German way, eh? That’s going a bit far.’
‘Perhaps.’
David stared fixedly ahead as the lift clanked upwards. He wanted to punch them, break their faces.
That morning it was hard to concentrate; fortunately there was only routine deskwork to attend to. He thought of Natalia, her almond-shaped eyes looking at him from the car.
You should tell them.