Prior had a sudden chilling perception that Manning was right. ‘Rubbish. Beattie Roper’s a working-class woman from the back streets of Salford. You don’t give a fuck about her. I don’t mean you personally — though that’s true too — I mean your class.’
Manning was looking interested now rather than angry. ‘You really do think class determines everything, don’t you?’
‘Whether people are taken seriously or not? Yes.’
‘But it’s not a question of individuals, is it? All right, I don’t know anything about women in the back streets of Salford. I don’t pretend to. I don’t want to. It doesn’t mean I want to see them sent to prison on perjured evidence. Or anybody else for that matter.’
‘Look, can we skip the moral outrage? When I came in here, you assumed I was after a cushy job. I didn’t even get the first bloody sentence out. Are you seriously saying you would have made that assumption about a person of your own class?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘No, I would.’
‘You get dozens of them, I suppose, begging for safe jobs?’
‘Yes,’ Manning said bleakly.
Prior looked at him. ‘Golly. What fun.’
‘Not really.’
They sat in silence, each registering the change in atmosphere, neither of them sure what it meant. ‘You’re right,’ Manning said at last. ‘It was an insulting assumption to make. I’m sorry.’
At that moment the door opened and Rivers came in.
‘Charles, I — ‘He stopped abruptly when he saw Prior. ‘Hello. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had a visitor.’ He smiled at Prior. ‘I hope you’re not tiring my patient?’
‘He’s wearing me out,’ Prior snapped.
‘What did you want to see me about?’ Manning asked.
Rivers said, ‘Nothing that can’t wait.’
He went out and left them alone.
There was a short silence. ‘I’m sorry too,’ Prior said. ‘You’re right, of course. Class prejudice isn’t any more admirable for being directed upwards.’ Just more fucking justified. ‘Do you think I should show that to her MP?’
‘Oh, God, no, don’t do that. Once they’ve denied it in the House, it’ll be set in concrete. No, I’ll have a word with Eddie Marsh. Only don’t expect too much. I mean, it’s perfectly clear even from your report she was sheltering deserters. That’s two years’ hard labour. She’s only done one.’
‘She wasn’t charged with that.’
Manning said, ‘They’re not going to let her out yet.’
‘So what will they do?’
‘Wait till the war’s over. Let her go quietly.’
Prior shook his head. ‘She won’t last that long.’
That night, at nine o’clock, Prior went out for a drink. He came to himself in the small hours of the morning, fumbling to get his key into the lock. He had no recollection of the intervening five hours.
Rivers rubbed the corners of his eyes with an audible squidge. ‘That’s the longest, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Just.’
‘Any clues? I mean, had you been drinking?’
‘Like a fish. I’ve still got the headache.’
Rivers replaced his glasses.
‘One of the… how shall I put it?’ Prior breathed deeply. ‘Inconveniences of my present position is that I do tend to end up with somebody else’s hangover. Really rather frequently.’
‘Not “somebody else’s”.’
Prior looked away. ‘You’ve no idea how disgusting it is to examine one’s own underpants for signs of “recent activity”.’
Rivers looked down at the backs of his hands. ‘I’m going to say something you probably won’t like.’
The telephone began to ring in the next room.
Prior smiled. ‘And I’m going to have to wait for it too.’
The call was from Captain’ Harris, telephoning to arrange the details of a flight they were to make tomorrow. Rivers jotted the time down, and took a few moments to collect his thoughts before returning to Prior.
Prior was standing by the mantelpiece, looking through a stack of field postcards. Well, that was all right, Rivers thought, closing the door. Field postcards contained no information about the sender except the fact that he was alive. Or had been at the time it was posted. ‘His book’s out, you know?’ Prior said, holding a postcard up. ‘Manning’s got a copy.’
‘Yes.’
Rivers sat down and waited for Prior to join him.
‘I suppose this is the real challenge,’ Prior said. ‘For you. The ones who go back. They must be the ones you ask the questions about. I mean obviously all this face your emotions, own up to fear, let yourself feel grief… works wonders. Here.’ Prior came closer. Bent over him. ‘But what about there? Do you think it helps there? Or do they just go mad quicker?’
‘Nobody’s ever done a follow-up. Electric shock treatment has a very high relapse rate. What mine is, I just don’t know. Obviously the patients who stay in touch are a self-selected group, and such evidence as they provide is anecdotal, and therefore almost useless.’
‘My God, Rivers. You’re a cold bugger.’
‘You asked me a scientific question. You got a scientific answer.’
Prior sat down. ‘Well dodged.’
Rivers took his glasses off. ‘I’m really not trying to dodge anything. What I was going to say is I think perhaps you should think about coming into hospital. The—’
‘No. You can’t order me to.’
‘No, that’s true. I hoped you trusted me enough to take my advice.’
Prior shook his head. ‘I just can’t face it.’
Rivers nodded. ‘Then we’ll have to manage outside. Will you at least take some sick leave?’
Another jerk of the head. ‘Not yet.’
Prior avoided thinking about the interview with Beattie Roper till he was crossing the prison yard. She’d been on hunger strike again, the wardress said, jangling her keys. And she’d had flu. No resistance. In sick bay all last week. He’d find her weak. The prison doctor had wanted to force-feed her, but the Home Office in its wisdom had decided that such methods were not to be used.
She was thinner than he remembered.
He stood just inside the door. She was lying on the bed, the light from the barred window casting a shadow across her face. The wardress stood against the wall, by the closed door.
‘I need to see her alone.’
He expected an argument, but the wardress withdrew immediately.
‘The voice of authority, Billy.’
Mucus clung to the corners of her lips when she spoke, as if her mouth were seldom opened.
He moved closer to the bed. ‘I hear you’ve been ill.’
‘Flu. Everybody’s had it.’
He remained standing, as if he needed her permission to sit. She nodded towards the chair.
‘I’ve been doing what I can,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t amount to much. I was hoping Mac might be able to help, but —’
A chest movement that might have been a laugh. ‘Not where he is. You know where they’ve sent him, don’t you? Wandsworth.’
‘You see, you did shelter deserters. They think you’d do it again.’
She hoisted herself up the bed. ‘Bloody right ‘n’ all. I might look like a bloody scarecrow but in here’ — she tapped the side of her head — ‘I’m the same.’
Outside the door the wardress coughed.
‘You remember a lad called Brightmore?’
‘No.’
‘Go on, you do.’
He didn’t, but he nodded.
‘Lovely lad. They sent him to Cleethorpes. Twelve months’ detention. ‘Course he went on refusing to obey orders so he got twenty-eight days solitary and what they did they dug a hole, and it was flooded at the bottom and they put him in that. Couldn’t sit down, couldn’t lie down. Nothing to look at but clay walls. Somebody come to the top of the pit and told him his pals had been shipped off to France and shot, and if he didn’t toe the line the same thing’d happen to him. He thought his mind was going to give way. Then it started pissing down and the hole flooded and the soldiers who were guarding him were that sorry for him they took him out and let him sleep in a tent. They didn’t half cop it when the CO found out. Next day he was back in the pit. If one of them soldiers hadn’t given him a cigarette packet to write on, he’d’ve died in there. As it was they got a letter smuggled out —’