A Five Year Sentence (9 page)

Mrs Watts had noticed a distinct change in her son, and she was not sure that it pleased her. For the last few days not a word of protest or petulance had escaped him. He did his duty by her without complaint, with grace even, and though she should have found such treatment an agreeable change, there was something about his manner that unnerved her. She was not anxious as to why he had changed; that was his business, and whatever was happening to him was of no interest to her. Except in so far as it affected herself and her own well-being. She had never liked her son. His untimely, unwished-for arrival had been the cause of her marriage in the first place and she never quite forgave him for forcing her into a contract to which both parties were equally unwilling. But when Brian was born, she thought the three of them could make some kind of life together. She had never looked forward to the novelty of wife and motherhood, and she had been both for two short months before Mr Watts, who already had little appetite for his position, sensed a displacement even in that, and one evening while she was feeding, he packed a bag and simply disappeared. He left a note on the bedside table in case she should wait up for him. When Mrs Watts had finished the feeding, she called to her not much better-half, and hearing no reply, she entertained three possibilities. One, he was not answering because for some reason he was angry with her; two, that he had slipped out for a quick pint at the pub; or three that he had simply dropped dead. She milled over all the possibilities and had to admit to herself that, in truth, she wished for the last. She went to the foot of the stairs. She noticed that his coat was gone from the stand, and with regret she acknowledged that he must have gone to the pub. She carried the baby
to the cot which was kept alongside her side of the bed. She caught sight of the note on the bedside table and instinctively knew that her marriage was at an end. Fearfully she read it, ‘I've gone for good,' he had written. ‘Can't stand it any longer.' Mrs Watts was too vain a woman to consider that the ‘it' that he couldn't stand had anything to do with her. The ‘it', without doubt, was Brian. She practically threw him into the cot. By some miraculous instinct of survival, he made no protest, which was just as well for she might there and then have smothered him. For her anger was loud and extreme. A few minutes ago she had wished for a respectable widowhood and a cashing-in of the life-insurance she had nagged him into taking out on their wedding-day. Now her status was that of a humiliated desertee, and she looked at the silent, frightened bundle in the cot with loathing. The look was not lost on little Brian, and he took this opportunity to donate to the world his first smile, and with it, he was pleading for his life. Her heart softened towards him long enough to stay her hand and this negative offering was the first and last tenderness she ever gave him. Thereafter she suffered him. Suffered his wetting, his teething, his crying, his fevers, and throughout his child and boyhood, she envisaged all means of getting shot of him. Until he threatened independence. At that moment, she decided to keep him by her. He had ruined her life. Now, whether he liked it or not, he would pay for it with companionship, and later on, with care. There had been times when it seemed he might leave her. The army had been the most threatening competitor, but her sudden and well-timed bouts of genuine ill-health had secured him to her side. After the war, she had pushed him into a job of shop-assistant in an art shop, simply because it was near the house and enabled him to get back to make her lunch. He hadn't minded it too much, for painting had been his hobby for many years. He stayed there till his retirement. He'd never been promoted, and during his time, many younger than he by-passed him to management. But as far as his mother was concerned, he earned enough to keep them both and his bitterness was entirely of his own making. On two occasions, the comforts of Mrs Watts' old age had been
threatened by possible daughters-in-law, and for each of them she invented stories about her son's inadequacies. The last suitor, an overbearing lady called Eileen, was not put off by reports of Brian's selfishness, and brutality, but finally gave up the fight on Mrs Watts' suggestion of her son's homosexuality. Though she didn't use the word. She had read in books that some men made love to other men. She didn't believe one filthy word of it, but it was certainly worth a try. The hardy Eileen, who was prepared to put up with any shortcomings for the sake of matrimony, finally drew the line at that obstruction and no more was seen of her.

From that time onwards, Brian had made small movements of protest, which, as time went on, became more frequent and disagreeable. He hardly ever smiled and never at her. That survival weapon was long obsolete. Over the latter years, he had gone about her geriatric business with disgust and silent loathing. But Mrs Watts took no offence at it. That's how men were, so his behaviour was in no way surprising. But things had changed. Over the last few days, she had caught him smiling to himself and she felt threatened, for she preferred the sullen battle to the complaisant peace. His smile indicated some scheme afoot, or worse, a recollection of a secret life of which she had no part. She watched him from the corner of the room where she was pretending to read her library book. He was writing on a large sheet of drawing-paper, and he was licking his lips and smiling the while. Suddenly she could not stand her isolation, and she shouted at him that she wanted a cup of tea, though she had no appetite for it, but she could not countenance another moment of his non-attention. He got up straightaway, taking care to cover the parchment sheet with a piece of blotter. Now she knew for certain that he had a secret and she was determined to find out what preoccupation so excluded her. She heard him running the water in the kitchen and she gauged that she had enough time to cross over to his desk, satisfy her curiosity and return to her library book. But she was a slow mover, and a careful one, for she did not want to run the risk of breaking her brittle bones and give him an excuse for putting her away. Sometimes, in dark
moments, he had threatened it, ‘It'll be the Twilight Homes for you' he would say. And it was a nightmarish threat. She had heard about the home from the woman upstairs who'd put her mother there, and now the old widow from downstairs was going there too, and she would be left, redundant on the middle floor, a disgrace to the young house with her age and incontinence. She didn't want to go to the Twilight Home, and the fear of it locked her step towards his desk. She sat down again. No. She didn't want to be cooped up in a ward with a dozen smelling women who didn't know how to control themselves. And to have the occasional visitor who couldn't wait to get away. Sometimes, she daydreamed about The Petunias, the posh home for Senior Citizens that she'd read about in one of the Sunday papers. It was like she imagined a hotel would be, with thick carpets on every inch of floor, and your own private bathroom a few steps away from your bed. And meals brought by servants at a touch of a bell, and a colour television all to yourself. She would like that, she thought. For that kind of luxury she would gladly get out of her son's way. But The Petunias was for the rich, and would remain for her forever a daydream.

‘Hurry up with the tea,' she shouted in her frustration, and she spat on the threadbare carpet in disgust.

Brian returned with the tea-tray. He set it down on the table, then went straight to the concealing piece of blotting-paper to check that it hadn't been moved. Mrs Watts sensed a deep belligerence in him, and she was glad she had decided against prying into his affairs. She saw him smile again, and did not know how much longer she could stand it. She gave a sigh for The Petunias, and screamed at him, ‘What are you smiling about?'

‘D'you have to know everything?'

His words were a hopeful sign of a renewed battle, but he was smiling even as he said them. It was clear he was giving nothing away

‘You're plotting against me,' she said. ‘You're writing a letter to the Twilight Home. You're asking about vacancies.'

He picked up the drawing-sheet. It was unreadable from her
distance, but it was clear enough that the writing was in the form of a list. ‘Does that look like a letter?' he said, still smiling.

She regretted that she hadn't smothered him in his cot all those years ago. ‘It's the list of things I have to take with me,' she said, needing desperately to kindle the flicker of a fight. ‘I won't need much in the Twilight Home,' she said. ‘They even provide a nightdress. White state flannel,' she said, ‘and state slippers and yellow state soap. I've heard all about it. Well I'm not going,' she screamed at him. ‘I'll call the police.'

He removed his smile and it seemed to calm her a little. ‘Who said anything about Twilight Homes?' he said.

‘There isn't another one,' she sulked. Then after a pause, ‘Except The Petunias.' She looked at him and saw a sly smile flit across his face, and it was clearly a smile for her, and not on account of some private recollection. ‘You'd have to rob a bank,' she said, and she heard herself laughing, and she thought that, somewhere beneath their ungiving skins, there must be a strong bond of affection between them. Together they were a united front against the armies of youth and neglect that sandwiched them above and below stairs.

He poured her the tea. ‘I was thinking of taking a part-time job,' he said. ‘They need someone in the children's library after school. Three days a week.'

‘We can manage on what we've got,' she said, on her guard.

‘Thought I'd like to get out a bit,' he said. ‘You could be left on your own for a few hours.'

In view of her softened feelings towards him, she agreed, though she knew that there would be times when she would resent his non-attendance. ‘What will I get out of it?' she said.

‘My happiness.' It astounded him that he articulated such a thought to his mother, who, in her turn, had no notion of how to deal with it. Her son's happiness had never been any of her business, and that it should give her pleasure, was a notion that she had never entertained. She thought about it for a while, and couldn't, for all her trying, make any connection. ‘The least you can do is bring me home some chocolates,' she said.

‘Is it all right then?'

‘You sure it's a job?'

‘I'll show you my wages if you like, and I'll save them up,' he said.

‘What for?'

He smiled again, and this time it was for himself. ‘Well you never know,' he said. He was glad that he had manoeuvred his working hours so easily, and he was anxious to get back to his list which would form the working basis of his income. He sat at his desk and perused the services he had so far itemised. As yet, he'd not priced them, but he'd listed them in degrees of titillation according to his inexperienced, but hotly imagined, standards. So that the holding of Miss Jean Hawkins' hand was the first offer on the list, and in such a position would be the cheapest service. He reckoned he could hardly charge more than 2p for that one, and certainly not less, for that would undervalue his craft. Next came the holding of two hands, which logically should have cost double but he was afraid to escalate too soon, for he could imagine so many items on the ladder of her affections that the cost of the final service on the top rung would surely be prohibitive. So he put the double hand-hold at 3p and hoped she'd have the sense to smell a bargain. These two leading items he had wreathed in yellow rose-petals, and underlined with a green leaf. The leaf signalled the beginning of a more specialised line of service, and consequently a higher price. Heading these special services were those parts of the body, not necessarily visible to the naked eye, and included a fondling of the elbow, neck, ankle and the knee. These items he decorated with rosebuds, with their inbuilt promise of total bloom, which would be found in the next section. This third category was the most daring, and he intended to frame it in an outline of brown thorns. He had not yet itemised this section, for he knew it would take time and called on all his ingenuity to describe each service in graphic, yet subtle, terms, and to come to a decision regarding the fees. Meanwhile he contented himself with painting the frame of thorns. The thorn motif he'd chosen for its implication of pain, but the pain was to be sweetened by the occasional yellow rose in full and bursting bloom. And there would be dew
on each petal. He didn't know why, but he sensed that this small detail would be appropriate. He set to work on the illustration, while Mrs Watts, shackled with prejudice, considered the implications of his part-time job. All that she could think of were the drawbacks, the hours of loneliness and non-attention. But the one bonus that she could reap from the situation was the knowledge that he would be out of the house long enough for her to rummage through his papers and discover what schemes he was making on her behalf. For despite his denials, the threat of the Twilight Home loomed its dark shadow.

‘When do you start your job?' she said, anxious to make a start on her reconnaissance.

‘Next Friday.' His answer was prompt. ‘For an hour or so.' He intended to meet Miss Hawkins as arranged and to present her with the bill of fare. He would hand it to her and suggest she take it home for her consideration. He would be too embarrassed to be witness to her perusal and her first reactions, which he could not quite predict. He would arrange to meet her on Monday afternoon. Perhaps, with luck, she might invite him to her house, for most of his supplies, apart from those in the first category, were certainly not al fresco. By Friday morning he would have completed his full trade-list. He found it difficult to concentrate on the imagined specialities while his mother was in the room. Her eavesdropping presence made an obscenity of his ledger. He made a mental note to take it with him wherever he went, and not to risk making a copy. He would give the original to Miss Hawkins, and suggest that she should keep it for him, framed if she so wished, above her mantelpiece, so that she was constantly aware of the price of her pleasure.