The Husband's Story (48 page)

Mr Justice Streetley was still thinking about Stan, still labelling and classifying him, when he went up to bed. And his night followed the old, familiar pattern – a few short hours of tossing, uneasy slumber and then suddenly awake again with the minute-hand of his mind ticking on from the precise point on the dial that it had reached the evening before. Mr Justice Streetley made no attempt to fight his insomnia. Instead, wriggling over onto his back, he lay there, going over the shape and substance of tomorrow's sentencing, polishing up a phrase here, strengthening a weak epithet there. By five-thirty he was word perfect and had drifted quietly off to sleep again, only to be called at seven.

Stan, for his part, had enjoyed close on eight hours of practically unbroken sleep; easily the best since all this trouble had started. In consequence, he felt thoroughly rested; refreshed through and through, even relaxed in a strange, slightly dreamlike sort of fashion.

Standing beside his bunk and looking up at the criss-cross of the window bars, he began one of his secret, private conversations.

‘No more of this hanging-about business, no more back-and-forthing,' he told himself. ‘Whatever it is, you can take it. What's five years
what's ten years for that matter – if you've kept your health? You'll be all right. You won't have lost your knack when you come out. You'll still be able to show them what a photograph ought to look like. You'll have your own studio one day. You'll be a celebrity.'

There was always this oddly consoling note in what was said when one of the two Stans began talking to the other one. It was as though the first one, the one who actively did things, was the one who made all the mistakes while the other, the withdrawn one, knew how to put them right again. Quite often, it seemed to Stan Number One a pity that their two roles could not have been reversed.

In a desultory way, the conversation continued all the way to the Old Bailey in the Black Maria and, once there, right up to the dock itself. Stanley Pitts Number Two had just said to Stan Pitts Number One: ‘You don't have to worry about Beryl. She'll be all right. The Press'll look after her. And there's always Cliff, isn't there? You know how much he cares. If you're not there, he can take charge. He can afford to. He's loaded. He won't even notice what little Marleen's social extras cost.'

The unheard conversation was still under way, with Stan Number One listening attentively, when Mr Justice Streetley entered, and the whole Court had to rise. Stan got hurriedly onto his feet and stood respectfully to attention, hands to his side Boy Scout fashion. Even so, he was not ready, not really ready that is, when Mr Justice Streetley addressed him. He was still hearing what Stan Number Two was telling him.

‘… and have you anything to say before I pass sentence upon you?' Mr Justice Streetley was asking in his quietest, most neutral-sounding voice. ‘Because now is the moment when you can speak.'

The question took Stan so entirely by surprise that he didn't know what to say. He only wished that Mr Hayhoe would come forward to help him. But Mr Hayhoe did not move. He remained entirely unresponsive, seemingly oblivious. Stan realized that it was up to him.

‘No, I don't think so, sir,' he said, ‘my Lord, I mean. Not the way things are. Not after what's happened. But thank you all the same for asking, sir. Thank you very much indeed.'

Mr Justice Streetley made no comment. He merely acknowledged Stan's reply by a brief nod of the head. Then, after a suitable pause, he began his own speech.

‘It would seem,' he observed, ‘that nowadays loyalty is the forgotten
virtue.' It was here that Mr Cheevers gave a little tremor of delight as he heard the words: close student of Mr Justice Streetley as he was, he had never heard him phrase things better. But already Mr Justice Streetley was in voice again. ‘Apparently patriotism is no longer fashionable,' he went on. ‘Today it is the sentry who is on guard who opens the door to the citadel when he finds that the enemy brings gold…' There was quite a lot more in the same vein because in the night Mr Justice Streetley had lain awake for quite a long time. Stan did his best to follow him. It was not, however, until Mr Justice Streetley got round to the bit about the actual sentence that Stan found that he could really concentrate.

‘Of all the offences on the statute book none is more grave than that of treason,' he heard him say at last, ‘and no convicted traitor can expect leniency when he is brought before the law. It is therefore my clear and inescapable duty to impose upon you a sentence which will ensure that you are put away for a considerable period of your life. I do so in order not only to protect the realm but to serve as a warning to others as treacherous and greedy as yourself. The sentence which after reflection I impose is one of eighteen years imprisonment.'

That was when Beryl, who had been sitting there all the time, fainted and fell off her chair. From his place in the dock Stan could not see properly what it was that was happening. The policeman's hand was already on his shoulder when Stan remembered his manners.

‘Thank you again, my Lord,' he said. ‘I'm… I'm deeply sorry to have put you to all this trouble and expense on my account.'

On that last day of the trial, when Beryl heard the terms of Stan's sentence, it seemed that suddenly her whole life was over – and Marleen's too, for that matter. It was as though the earth had stopped. There was certainly no future that she could see for either of them. But in all human relations there is a kind of Newton's Law, just as there is in text-book physics. Equal and opposite forces are working against each other the whole time, and there is an aftermath to everything.

For Beryl, it came in the form of a telephone call. And it was about time for it, too. Ever since her return to Kendal Terrace she had been suffering one humiliation after another. It was on a Thursday that Stan had been sent down and, by the following Monday, a letter had arrived from the Admiralty. In impressively large type the writer explained that Their Lordships were obliged to observe Service Regulations to the letter and that, where Official Secrets were involved, the rules were decidedly on the strict side. There was apparently no way of getting round them. In consequence Stan was to regard himself as no longer merely on the suspended list: he was sacked.

Nor was that all. Parliament, it seemed, really had it in for people like Stan, and it was specifically laid down that in such cases all pension rights were forfeited, too.

What's more, with nothing short of ruin confronting her, Beryl got no comfort from the first of the prison visits which the authorities allowed her. Quite the reverse, in fact. Even at their best, prison visits are pretty unsatisfactory affairs; and the first one went wrong from the very start. Stan remembered to ask about Marleen, but forgot to ask how Beryl herself was. The sheer thoughtlessness of his behaviour so much upset her that she could hardly speak. And when he asked if she had seen Cliff lately, she snapped back at him.

‘You mind your business and I'll mind mine,' was what she said.

The sudden venom behind the words astonished him. It was only after the interview was over that he began to understand. But it was quite obvious really. It meant that she and Cliff must be seeing a great deal of each other; every day, possibly. And it was only natural that
she wouldn't want to be questioned about it. You could hardly expect any nice woman on a prison visit to say ‘thanks-for-asking-yes-dear-I'm-going-on-being-regularly-unfaithful-to-you'. And he could see that having to say it through the wire mesh of the interview grille would somehow have made it all that much harder.

Stan was glad now that he had always made a point of being so nice to Cliff, pretending that he was pleased to see him whenever he dropped in, not showing that he minded when Cliff made fun of him, laughing at Cliff's jokes, gratefully accepting the gifts, so many of them trade samples, which he kept showering upon them. It was a positive relief to know that Cliff would still be around, because it meant that Beryl's future was so much safer, so much more secure. He wouldn't let go of her now, Cliff wouldn't; he'd be there ready to chip in if things got difficult; that had always been the best side of Cliff's nature, his generosity.

The telephone call came when Beryl was at her very lowest; right down in the depths, in fact. She could tell that she had one of her headaches coming on, and had already drawn the curtains right across the bedroom windows. Eyes closed, she lay there in the half-darkness. Only her lips were moving.

‘Oh Cliff, Cliff,' she was saying, ‘where are you? Why have you done this to me? Don't you mind about me any more? Have you just stopped caring?'

The words were still going through her mind when she started up as she heard the
b-rrr b-rrr
of the telephone bell. Immediately, almost by instinct as it were, she knew who it would be: knew that her plea had been answered.

The phone – it was an ivory-white one because Beryl had always felt that the black sort somehow looked too officey inside the home – was in the front lounge. All the way downstairs she was afraid that the bell would stop ringing.

‘Cliff, Cliff,' she said breathlessly as she lifted the receiver.

But it was not Cliff at the other end.

‘Mrs Pitts?' the voice asked. ‘Mr Cheevers,
Sunday Sun
, here. I'm in the neighbourhood, and I wondered if I might pop round for a moment?'

It was a follow-up story that Mr Cheevers wanted: ‘SPY FORFEITS
PENSION – WIFE FIGHTS FOR CHILD'S RIGHTS' – that kind of thing. Already his book,
Birth of a Crime
, was beginning to take shape; and Beryl was the only person who could help him with it. From her he would have to learn, bit by bit, all that could be known about Stan – not just about his singular lack of promotion in the Civil Service but about his secret ambitions, his impulses, his little worries, his photographic successes, his comforts, his doubts, his failings and his fears.

Mr Cheevers was a skilled interviewer of the sympathetic, understanding sort. He felt confident that, given time, she would tell him everything. From long experience he knew that, once lonely people start talking, there is usually no stopping them; and Beryl was certainly in need of someone who would listen.

In the result, Mr Cheevers became a regular visitor to Kendal Terrace, and Beryl made no attempt to deter him. Basically nervous where women were concerned, he was careful to keep it all very cool and matter-of-fact, always ringing up first and not letting things degenerate into the casual, dropping-in stage. Ostensibly it was always to see if there were any developments, anything new for the great army of his readers. But, little by little, the formality began to wear off. Nowadays, he would arrive carrying a small box of chocolates for Marleen, or a copy of an illustrated magazine that he thought Beryl might like to see. Never flowers, however. That, he felt, would be going too far. Besides, it might make Beryl think that he was pursuing her. The very idea shocked and alarmed him. It offended his whole sense of professional ethics. To him, doctor, priest and reporter were all bound by a set of laws positively Koranic in their rigidity.

This evening, notebook in hand, Mr Cheevers was leaning forward in his chair. Altogether it looked like being one of his more fruitful sessions. Now that Beryl was beginning to know him she was becoming less discreet; even quite confidential at times. And Mr Cheevers was employing his well-tried techniques. He rarely asked a direct question; preferred instead to make a harmless-sounding, generalized observation and then sit back quietly and wait for the response.

‘One way or another in my kind of life you come up against a lot of unhappiness,' he had just said. ‘And there's one thing you can't help noticing – that's the way old friends rally round. Things go smoothly, and you never see them. Then something happens, and there they are standing right on your doorstep. That's life, that is.'

Beryl did not reply immediately. That was because she had not been listening to a word that he had been saying. Instead, she was looking down at Mr Cheevers's feet and admiring them. Men's shoes had always held a peculiar fascination for her; and these were the style that she liked best – half-brogue, tan calf with narrow laces. And Mr Cheevers was wearing exactly the right kind of ribbed socks. Stan himself had always been hopeless about his shoes and socks.

Dimly she became aware that Mr Cheevers had stopped speaking.

‘I've been thinking about what you asked me last time,' she said. ‘About the book, I mean. Because you never really knew Stan, did you? Not like knowing him properly, I mean. So I'd have to tell you everything, otherwise you wouldn't have anything to write about, would you? But if it was me talking it'd be different. More unusual like. After all, I could say things nobody else could, couldn't I? They'd sound all right coming from me. With your help, of course. That way it ought to be good enough to go into a paperback and be serialized like. You'd have to do the writing part, of course, because I don't know about the chapters and the punctuation. Well, I wouldn't – would I? – because I've never done anything like that before. But it'd still be me speaking, like it was in those articles. Nobody could tell it wasn't me, could they? Not unless they knew, that is.'

She paused and looked up at Mr Cheevers.

‘Then, of course, we could share the money,' she told him. ‘That'd be only fair, wouldn't it? Do you think people would buy it? If I really told the truth, I mean. Not just hinted at it. We wouldn't just be wasting our time like, would we? I wouldn't want that. Because it's only for little Marleen's sake that I'd be doing it. It's different for you. You're a writer. I'm a mother. I have my child to consider.'

Mr Cheevers was slowly recovering his professionalism. It wouldn't be by any means what he had intended. But he could still see distinct possibilities. And, after all, his name would be there on the title page: ‘… as told to Cyril Cheevers' the inscription would run.