The Husband's Story (44 page)

Glancing down at the case-notes in his hand, he decided to probe deeper.

‘And your little girl?' he asked.

‘What about her?'

This time the psychiatrist decided to put the question the other way round. It was another of the little professional tricks that he had worked out.

‘I expect she's missing you,' he said.

Stan thought for a moment before replying.

Again, to the psychiatrist, the pause was every bit as good as a reply. It disclosed the battle between truth and falsehood that was being waged within. There was indeed one simple law that governed all such pauses: even first-year men soon got to know that the longer the delay, the greater the untruth.

And in a moment, sure enough, out it came.

‘Not really,' Stan told him. ‘She's got her mother – and her dancing, you see.'

The psychiatrist gave a little inward-looking smile. If he had prepared the answer himself, it could not have been more revealing. In simple terms it meant that Stan was tortured by the thought of the suffering that he had inflicted on his daughter and, purely for his own self-protection, had invented the myth that she had not been hurt at all.

It was apparent that the moment had now come for other areas to be explored. But the psychiatrist was not rushing things. When, at last, he did address Stan he spoke as though the question had only just come to him.

‘Suppose you could have anything you wanted – anything you cared to ask for – what would it be, I wonder?'

This time the psychiatrist was not expecting a prompt reply. After all, the option was a large one; overwhelmingly wide-open, in fact. Nevertheless, Stan's answer was immediate.

‘I'd like a decent cup of tea,' he said. ‘I don't want anything fancy. Not China or Earl Grey. Nothing like that. Just an ordinary cup of tea that really tastes like tea.' His voice tailed off, became almost inaudible, and the psychiatrist thought that Stan had finished. But here the psychiatrist was wrong again. Stan had not yet reached the important part. ‘And no tea bags, either,' he added emphatically. ‘Just proper tea.'

With a laugh, a deliberately casual, disinterested kind of laugh, the psychiatrist tried again.

‘We'd all like that,' he said. ‘I haven't had a decent cuppa for years. But I meant something bigger. More important. Something to hit the headlines. Like winning the Pools. Or marrying a Beauty Queen. Or scoring a century in a Test Match. Or being Knighted. Or being voted Man of the Year. Something like that.'

This time Stan did not hesitate. His answer came back loud and clear.

‘I'd like to get it over with,' he said.

The psychiatrist leant forward. This was the point to which all his questions had been leading.

‘You will,' he said. ‘You will. You'll be back in civilian life again, back with your family, before you know where you are.'

‘That wasn't what I meant,' Stan said.

The psychiatrist ran the back of his fingernail up the side margin of his typed-out case-notes.

‘Then what did you mean?' he asked, using the same flat, casual-sounding voice that he used at all these interviews.

‘I meant the trial,' Stan told him; and, without any further prompting from the psychiatrist, he continued. ‘Well, it's not right, is it?' he asked. ‘Not just keeping me waiting. I'd like it to happen.'

The psychiatrist gave another of his little inward smiles.

‘Then you're looking forward to it, are you?' he asked.

Stan pondered the remark for a moment.

‘I suppose I am rather,' he replied. ‘After all, I did it, and I've got to pay the price. That's what punishment's about, isn't it? It wouldn't be fair otherwise. At least, that's the way I see it.'

Stan seemed to have nothing to add to his last remark, and the psychiatrist made no attempt to prompt him. In the meantime, it was essential to preserve Stan's confidence, to win him over as a friend. The psychiatrist did not underestimate his powers. He knew that these mind-searchings, no matter how compassionately conducted, could be very painful to the patient. Quite often it was a human wreck with raw nerve-ends rather than a man left lying there when it was all over.

Slowly, so as not to alarm Stan in any way, he opened his cigarette case and held it out to him.

‘Care to smoke?' he asked.

But there was no reply. The chair had proved too comfortable, the cushions too soft and too pneumatic.

Head on shoulder, Stan was fast asleep.

Not that Stan need ever have had any misgivings about the delay. The law was taking its course all right. Already Mr Jeremy Hayhoe, QC, had been briefed for the defence, and things at last were moving.

What's more, Stan could not have been better pleased with Mr Marbuck's choice of counsel. It meant that he had been moving upwards all the time. First, there had been that natural-born loser on the Isle of Wight; then the battling Mr Marbuck with his built-in distrust of all police evidence; and now the prosperous-looking and imposing Mr Hayhoe.

You could tell at a glance that Mr Hayhoe was somewhere at the very top of his profession even though, when he was not in court and without his wig on, it might have been difficult to pin-point the profession. The made-up buttonhole, with the spray of fern tucked in behind the flower, could have belonged to an actor or a stockbroker. On the other hand, the ring with an over-large diamond set in it could have been the property of a well-to-do bookie or a bingo magnate. It was his face that betrayed him. Even a casual glimpse of the profile revealed something sterner, more Nero-like.

Stan began to feel better from the first moment he met him. It was nothing less than a privilege to sit opposite to someone so expensively equipped. Stan could not help noticing the thickness of the gold cufflinks and the thinness of the gold wrist-watch. There was the chased, gold fountain pen as well, and even Mr Hayhoe's little loose-leaf memorandum pad had gold corners to keep the leaves in place.

Mr Hayhoe was so reassuring, too. He nodded his head in sympathy with every reply that Stan gave him, and went out of his way to reassure him. ‘Leave it all to me,' he kept saying. ‘Just answer the questions as I put them to you, and I'll see to the rest.' By the end of their first interview, Stan had quite forgotten his old feeling of helplessness. Indeed, he could not help reflecting on how lucky he had been because, if things had turned out differently and the Civil Service had
given him that promotion that he had applied for, he'd have been above the salary limit for Legal Aid. And then, heaven knows what quality of man he would have been able to pick up.

Everything considered, Stan reckoned that he had a lot to be thankful for.

When at last Mr Marbuck told him that the date for the hearing had finally been fixed, Stan was so excited that he felt like crying. They had been too long, those weeks on remand: it had been like re-living a broken-off piece of childhood and waiting for a birthday that, it seemed, would never come.

Not that there was very much of the birthday spirit about it all. To and from the courtroom can be a pretty uncomfortable affair; indeed the whole of the day-trip and excursion side of prison life leaves much to be desired; up too early; a lot of hanging around; uncomfortable transport; no morning paper to help speed the journey; and all the fuss about handcuffs.

The handcuffs were what Stan most disliked. They were hard and cold and humiliating. And heavy. To be even reasonably comfortable in handcuffs you have to sit with your hands folded in your lap as though knitting. And that is part of the trouble with all Black Marias. There is nowhere proper to sit. All that the accommodation provides is something more like a shelf than a seat; and not even a properly padded shelf at that. Anyone who has made the trip in one of these mobile prisons will tell you what it's like to be perched up, half-standing, half-sitting, in the little, narrow cubicle when the driver takes a side turning a bit too fast or has to brake suddenly.

But it still meant something simply to be in motion. And as Stan felt the Black Maria beginning to move he wondered what route the driver was going to choose, and whether it would take him near anywhere he knew. Not that he could have seen a thing: the narrowness of the windows in Black Marias and the opaqueness of the glass are among the commonest causes of complaint; and, in any case, drivers aren't allowed to choose. The route is all there, down on paper, and can't be varied. The duration of the journey is specified, too, though of course it varies a bit because these cross-town passenger trips have to be made at the height of the morning rush-hour. According to the regulations a full forty minutes had to be allowed from the front gates of Stan's prison to the reception bay at the Old Bailey.

Stan himself was one of the early ones. The clock in the reception hall showed nine-thirty, and he wondered if they were missing him over in Frobisher House; he supposed they must be because there was bound to be something about the trial in the papers. But, as he hadn't seen one, he couldn't tell.

And that was something else he had against Black Marias: no radio.

Another early arrival at the Old Bailey had been Mr Cheevers. He always liked to get there early, take a look at the public entrance to see if any queue was forming, walk round to the courtyard which the Judges used, pass the time of day with the constable on duty and be in his place in the press gallery while the ushers were still going round arranging things.

In Mr Cheevers's view the reporting of any trial was a work of art, and no pains should be spared to make it as perfect as possible. This, moreover, was not simply any trial. It was one of Mr Justice Streetley's trials. Mr Justice Streetley was still at the height of his powers and, like the conductors of famous orchestras, Mr Justice Streetley could be relied on to draw his own audience. And that was where Mr Justice Streetley was one up on the conductors; Mr Justice Streetley's remarks were regularly quoted in all the Sunday papers.

As it turned out, Beryl had been one of the comparatively late ones; only just before the Judge, in fact.

But that had been British Rail's fault, not Beryl's. The eight-thirty-two from Crocketts Green had drawn up and waited outside Perrott's Junction for a whole quarter of an hour – which meant that when the train did finally get to Cannon Street she had to make a dash past the barrier, and find herself a taxi.

And that was something else that Beryl disliked: the thought of having to say ‘Old Bailey' to the taxi driver. The taxi, however, had not proved such a bad idea. It gave her somewhere to see what was wrong with the skirt that she was wearing: for some reason the silly thing kept twisting round, leaving the row of buttons that should have been in front, sticking out all along the side. This upset her because it was specially for Stan's trial that she had bought the suit. Navy blue, with contrasting collar and cuffs, was what she had chosen, and she had allowed herself a new navy blue handbag, too. If it hadn't been for her hair-do, she would have bought herself a new hat as well. But Monsieur
Louis had made that impossible: she would have to have had a hat with a full nine-inch crown, and they don't make that sort nowadays. There was nothing for it, therefore, but the everlasting headscarf again, worn peasant-woman fashion and tied ever so loosely under the chin.

Inside, the Old Bailey was more like the Crocketts Green Town Hall than Beryl had expected. And busier. There wasn't just one Court, either. There was a whole collection of them, all set out on a notice board like a railway station indicator.

But what particularly impressed her was the politeness of the policemen. They were all so gentle and smiling and considerate; not a bit like policemen really. It was very nice, too, to have Mr Marbuck's clerk come forward to meet her; he would take her to her seat, he said. All the same, Beryl had more than half expected that Mr Cheevers himself would be waiting for her. But even as the thought came to her she could see how unreasonable it was. Mr Cheevers was probably somewhere upstairs with the Judge; chatting over the more interesting legal aspects of the case, most likely.

The courtroom was larger than Stan had been prepared for. Coming up the steep flight of stairs leading from the cells, he could see it widening out all round him. And the dock itself was enormous: a whole football team could have been put on trial there. And he could not help admiring the rest of the general lay-out. The four large wall arches, the circular ceiling light, the raised sword over the Judge's chair, the green leather upholstery, even the glass sides to the dock itself, all seemed in excellent good taste; restrained, but still imposing. Dignified, too, in a negative, impersonal kind of way.

As he looked about him, it occurred to Stan that he had never seen any decent photographs of the inside of the Old Bailey; not when there had been a trial on, that is. Whereas, the whole place was absolutely built for it.
Judge's-eye view of Prisoner; Prisoner's-eye view of the Judge; Judge' s-eye view of the Jury; Jury' s-eye view
… and so forth. With a good camera, even with flashes not allowed, Stan reckoned that he could have made up a complete double-sided, twelve-page album.

And when, at last, it happened Stan could not resist a gasp of sheer admiration as the Judge came in. The effect of the scarlet robes against
the panelled walls and the green leather was nothing short of blinding: it clashed and blended both at the same time. And the grey wig was another master-stroke. Nor was that all. There had been the
sound
of Mr Justice Streetley's arrival – the sudden scraping of feet and the rustling of gowns and papers as everyone stood up. It was something on which Mr Cheevers himself had remarked in his own little manual of Court procedure. ‘Like the noise of a great flock of birds taking off, or a sudden landslide' was how he, with his instinctive gift for words, had described it.