Red Joan (43 page)

Stepping off the bus, Joan finds that she can plant one foot in front of the other quite easily as long as she does not think about what she has to do next. It is like walking along the edge of a cliff, watching how the breeze blows the daisies and buttercups on one side, and knowing that it is fine, it will all be fine; just don't look down. Except in Brixton there are no daisies or buttercups. There are rows of Victorian houses next to piles of rubble, war damage left untouched even though the war ended over four years ago, crowded buses, fruit stalls, bread shops and a lingering smell of uncooked fish.

It is not a long walk from the bus stop, mainly up the hill towards Streatham. She doubles back, stopping to look in the reflections of shop windows as is her habit. Nobody. Nothing. She is on her own and there is still a chance. The prison is on a quiet street, surrounded by a high brick wall. The Victorian architecture of the building has the intended effect: daunting and unassailable. It makes her shiver to look at the small windows, the neatly packed brickwork, the furnace chimneys soaring above the slanting roof. She has read that the footings of the old treadwheels remain visible in the main hall of the prison, and that at night the cells are overrun with rats and mice, although Max made no mention of this in his letter.

He is being brave but she knows it is a front. All week, he has been with her, appearing at the edge of her dreams. He has been tapping at the side of her head, trying to get her attention. She knows he will be lonely and frightened, even though he would hate to admit it.

She walks faster in the hope that her quickened heartbeat might drive these images out of her head. She breathes in and tips her head back so that the sunlight can splash her face with its brightness. Remember this, she thinks.

She goes to the visitors' entrance and is greeted by a man in a peaked cap, dressed rather like a bus conductor and with an air of having seen it all before. Certainly he has seen women like her before at the visitors' entrance, freshly powdered and prettily dressed.

‘I'm here to see Professor Max Davis.'

‘Old Lord Haw-Haw, eh?'

Joan looks at him sharply, remembering the fuss after the war when Lord Haw-Haw was hanged in Wandsworth Prison. The dark shadow of a hood flits into her mind, being pulled down, down over her face, and she shivers. She must be stronger than this, she thinks. And besides, it's not the same. Britain wasn't actually at war with the Soviet Union as it was with Germany when he was making his radio broadcasts. She lifts her head. ‘Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?'

The man shrugs, concentrating not on Joan but on riffling through his collection of forms.

‘Ah-ha,' he says. ‘Here you go. Prisoner Davis. First door on the left.'

Joan takes the form he is holding out to her. ‘He didn't do it, you know. They'll let him off.'

The man looks at her. He sees the intensity of her gaze, her too-large irises making her eyes appear almost black, hands encased in gloves, hair swept back. He gives a slight frown and then his face seems to change in some small, imperceptible way. ‘All right love, I believe you.'

‘Thank you,' she says, and this time she says it very politely. She steps through the gateway and proceeds to the next door where she presents her form to another man in a peaked cap who instructs her to follow him, and this time he makes no comment and nor does she. She follows him down one long concrete corridor and then another, until eventually he stops at a heavy door of reinforced metal and pushes it open with his shoulder to allow her through.

‘Wait here,' he says.

Joan nods. The door crashes shut behind her but it is not locked. She sits at the table, facing the window. There is a smell of wet dogs and urine, and over the crust of this is another smell; more industrial, bleach perhaps, or some other cleaning fluid which is not quite enough to cancel out the other, stronger odours. She cannot look at the door behind her, at its dull blue wash of paint, at the bars across the viewing slot, at the great lock with its immoveable handle. She takes off her gloves and grips them tightly, uselessly, in her hands.

It is worse than she imagined. Gloomier, smellier. It might be different for women, she thinks. The smell would be different and there would be different discomforts, different sadnesses. She has imagined the feel of the prison clothes on her back, the bucket in the corner of the cell, eating porridge out of a tin bowl with a spoon. Eating everything with a spoon. And how much worse it must be for Max. To be here and to have done nothing. The thought of it torments her, knowing he will be despairing at the injustice of it all, and that they will not be giving him enough to eat, that he will not be sleeping properly.

She closes her eyes. She waits.

The door opens behind her, footsteps, and then a breathless pause. Slowly she stands up, turns around, and there he is. His hair is cut short and he is in a pale grey flannel jacket and trousers. There is a prisoner number on his chest and, when he sees her, his face breaks into a smile. She wants to sink to her knees, to put her head in her hands at the knowledge that she has done this to him, but she knows that this would not help either of them and so she does not. She forces herself to smile while the silence rises almost palpably between them.

He steps towards her, cautious and questioning, and reaches out to take her in his arms. ‘You came,' he says. ‘I didn't think you would.'

‘No touching,' the guard says.

Joan makes a movement with her head which is somewhere between a shake and a nod, and steps obediently away from him. ‘Of course I came.'

Max's arms drop to his sides. ‘It's so good to see you.'

Joan swallows. ‘You too.'

‘How's everyone else?'

‘Karen sends her love. She forwarded your letter to me.'

‘Where?'

‘I've been staying at my mother's while this is going on. I'm sure the others will . . . Well, they'll come round. It's just been a bit of a shock.'

Max nods but does not say anything. He looks uncomfortable, vaguely embarrassed. He sits down at the table and Joan goes to sit opposite him. Does he know? she wonders. It seems impossible that he does. Surely she would be able to tell if he did. There would be something different about him, something sharp.

He looks up at her and attempts a grin. ‘Terrible service round here, isn't it?'

Joan smiles. She waits. No, she thinks. He doesn't know. ‘I brought you some cigarettes,' Joan says, taking them from her bag and placing them on the table.

‘Thanks.' A pause. And then Max speaks again. ‘So, I said I had some news. I got a letter from my wife.'

‘Oh?'

‘She's finally agreed to the divorce. She's signed all the papers. It's official.' His face breaks into a grin and he reaches out his hand to her across the table. ‘If I'd known that was all I needed to do, I'd have got myself arrested years ago. I'd ask you to marry me right now only this isn't how I want to do it. I want to wait until all this is done with and I've been cleared and then . . . ' He stops. ‘What is it? Why are you crying?'

Joan is clutching her bag to her chest and there is a slipping, shifting feeling inside her, as if something inside her is breaking in two. There is so much she wants to say. She cannot bear the thought of leaving him and explaining it all in a letter after she has gone. A huge wave of sound is building up and she has to push it down, down, so that when finally she trusts herself to speak, it comes out as a splutter. ‘I can't, Max. I can't marry you.'

‘Why not? Of course you can. I'll get out of here. I haven't done anything. They say they've got evidence but they haven't. Or if they have, I haven't seen any.'

‘I know you haven't done anything.'

‘Then what is it? Why are you crying?'

The words stick in her throat. She hears him ask the guard for just a minute alone. There is a pause, and then there is the sound of the door opening and closing as the guard relents and steps outside. It is just the two of them now in the room and she feels his arms slipping around her, lifting her up, stroking her hair, holding her, calming her, until her sobs have softened. She has to tell him now. There may never be another chance. She doesn't feel brave enough for this. She holds him tightly against her, her lips brushing his ear, and she whispers the words oh so gently into his neck. ‘It was me.'

Max's arms grow slack around her body. She does not draw away because she does not want to see his face but he puts her down and steps back, holding her shoulders with both of his hands. ‘You?'

Joan nods. She looks at the floor. Her whole body is shaking.

‘You?' He walks across the room to the window and then to the door. He comes back into the centre of the room and then walks to the window again. Perhaps he will fling the table across the room. Perhaps he will call for the guard, hammering on the door to get her taken away, to set him free, swearing and shouting and telling her to leave.

‘I'm going to confess,' she whispers, cringing at how pathetic the words sound.

Still Max says nothing. He is perfectly still now, staring at the bars on the window.

‘I'm sorry,' she whispers.

He turns around. ‘How could you?' he asks eventually, his voice quiet and angry. ‘Why?'

Joan feels her body flush. ‘I thought it was the right thing. After Hiroshima . . . '

Max groans.

‘ . . . after Hiroshima, it looked like the Russians would be next. I thought it would make everything safer.'

Max puts his hand against his forehead. ‘All those commie marches when you were a student. They asked me if you were a security risk because of those and I said no, of course you weren't. I vouched for you. Told them it was just a phase. And Leo Galich.' He shakes his head. ‘You did see him in Canada, didn't you?'

Joan looks away. She considers lying about this but decides there is no point. Slowly, she nods her head.

He turns away.

‘I only saw him briefly, I swear. And I didn't want to, but he found me. But I said no then.'

A pause. ‘Until Hiroshima.'

‘Yes.' Joan steps towards him. ‘Max, I'm sorry. Nobody was supposed to get caught.'

He snorts.

‘Especially not you,' she whispers.

Silence.

‘I'm going to tell them everything.'

Max doesn't turn around.

What am I expecting? Joan wonders. That he should be grateful to me? That he should thank me? She shakes her head at her own stupidity. ‘But will you give me a few more days? I just need . . . ' she hesitates, ‘ . . . a bit more time to get away.'

He does not move. It's too late, Joan thinks. This is the end. He's going to make her confess now, or if he doesn't, he is going to inform the authorities as soon as she leaves and she'll be arrested before she even reaches Brixton Hill. She shouldn't have come here. She should have known that it would be too much for him to take in, that it would be impossible for him, for anyone in his position, to be reasonable about it. And why should he do as she asks? Why should he give her a few more days? Why should he not clear his name absolutely, right now?

She goes back to the table and picks up her gloves and bag. Her eyes are blurred with tears. She wants to put her arms around him, tell him that she loves him, that she never meant to hurt him, but she does not want to make it worse for him than it already is.

‘Wait,' he says suddenly, spinning around. ‘What do you mean, get away?'

‘Australia,' she says. ‘I'm going to Australia. There's a boat in five days' time. I promise you'll be fine. They'll drop all the charges once I confess.'

‘Australia?'

There are footsteps in the corridor outside the door. She sees Max's eyes flick to the doorway, and she knows that this is her only chance. She has to get him to believe her. She reaches out her hand and touches him, and she feels the burn of his skin against hers. ‘I promise you can trust me. I will get you out of here.'

Max shakes his head. ‘No.' He grabs her hand. ‘No.'

She can hardly breathe. ‘Just a few days. That's all I need.'

He shakes his head.

‘I know it's a shock for you and I'm so sorry.' Her voice is shaking. ‘I can't tell you—'

‘No, that's not what I meant.'

‘Then what?'

‘I mean, don't go.'

‘But I have to. I have to confess. I have to get you out.' She looks up at the barred window. ‘And if I stay here . . . '

‘But don't you see? What's the point of that? I don't want you to go to Australia. I love you.'

She looks at him and her heart cracks inside her. ‘I love you too,' she whispers.

‘Exactly. So I want you to stay here, with me. There's no evidence against me anyway.' He looks at her. ‘Why not just let me go to trial?'

Joan stares at him. She shakes her head. ‘How could I do that? Even if you're acquitted, everyone will remember this. Your name won't ever be cleared. You won't be able to go back to your old job. Your old life.' She pauses. ‘And you won't be able to forgive me.'

He is silent for a moment. ‘You don't understand,' he says. ‘I don't want my old life. It's all I've been thinking about while I've been in here. I want a new one, with you.'

Joan cannot speak. What does he mean? Surely he will want her to confess in one way or another. Nobody could be that generous. Not even Max. ‘But how can you? After what I've done.'

He gives a wry half smile. ‘I'm a mathematician, Joanie. As far as I can see this problem has no rigorous solution, based on my initial assessment of it. So the best I can do is find the closest approximation.'

Joan almost grins, in spite of herself. ‘Don't tease me. Not now.'

There is a knock on the door. ‘Two more minutes.' A gruff voice, deep and croaky.