Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door

Her face lit up with amusement. ‘Mad Mary,’ she said. ‘Eeh, dear me, everybody sees that, chaplain, governor. I says, “Put it away, Mary, it’s going bald.” But you can’t reason with her, she’s away to the woods is that one, but you’d be surprised how many are. There’s women in here should never’ ve been sent to prison. They need help. Hey, and we’ve had a countess; an Irish rebel, I met her in the yard. She says, “You’re the woman who tried to kill Lloyd George. Let me shake your hand.” I says, “Well, it’s very kind of you, love, but I didn’t.”’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘’Course I bloody didn’t.’ She stared at him. ‘Did I try to kill Lloyd George by sticking a curare-tipped blowdart in his arse? No. I. did. not. Now if you’re asking, “Suppose you had a curare-tipped blowdart and Lloyd George’s arse was just here, would you stick it in?” ‘course I bloody would, because there’ll be no peace while that bugger’s in power.’

Prior shook his head. ‘You can’t fasten it on to one person like that.’

‘Can’t you? I can.’

‘I don’t see how you can derive that from a Marxist analysis.’

‘Bugger Marxist analysis, I hate the sod.’

He waited. ‘Enough to kill him?’

‘Yes, enough to kill him! And I wouldn’t feel guilty about it either. Any more than he feels guilty about the millions and millions of young lives he’s chucked away.’ She fell back, her mouth working. ‘I’m not your milk-and-water, creeping Jesus sort of pacifist.’

‘It might’ve been better if you hadn’t said all that in court.’

‘I told the truth in court. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ She laughed. ‘Bloody fatal, that was. Do you know, Billy, I’ve seen the time I could con anybody into anything, when I was a young woman. Now they ask me a simple question and the truth pours out.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s mixing with bloody Quakers, that’s what’s done it. Good Christian company’s been the ruin of me.’

‘So you didn’t plan to kill him?’

‘The poison was for the dogs.’

She hitched herself up the bed and propped her head against the wall. It was possible in this position to see how emaciated she was, how waxy her skin. Her hair, which had been brown the last time he saw her, was now almost entirely white. Thin strands escaped from the bun at the back of her head and straggled about her neck. He started to speak, but she interrupted him. ‘What are you here for, Billy?’

‘To help you.’

She smiled. ‘So what was all that about information?’

‘I had to say that. She was listening.’

‘But you are from the Ministry of Munitions?’

“Course I am. How do you think I got in? Doesn’t mean I’m here for information, does it?’ He leant forward. ‘Think about it, Beattie. What information have you got?’

She bridled. ‘You’d be surprised. People coming in and out.’ Then she pulled a face. ‘Actually, there’s not that many politicals in here. They’re all on about their fannies. You lose patience.’

‘I want you to tell me what happened.’

‘You mean you don’t know?’

‘I haven’t got a transcript of the trial.’

‘Haven’t you? You do surprise me. Why don’t you go and talk to Spragge?’

‘I will. I want your version first, because I haven’t heard your version.’ He waited. ‘Look, Beattie, whatever damage was done was done at the trial. I’m not asking you to name any names that didn’t come out then.’

She brooded for a moment. ‘You know Tommy Blenkinsop’s dead?’

‘Tommy —’

‘The deserter I had stopping with me. Hettie had gone away to live, you know, she was teaching over at Middleton, so I had this spare room, and I said I’d put Tommy up. Eeh, poor little Tommy, eleven kids, and do you know to look at him you wouldn’t’ve thought he had a fuck in him? He says to me, “You know, Beattie, I only joined up for a bit of peace.” Poor lad. Anyway, that night we were sat over the fire, Tommy and me, and there was this knock on the door, and I says to Tommy, “You go on upstairs, love.” I answered it and there was…” She sighed, looking into the distance. ‘Spragge. Rain pouring off him, it was a terrible night. And he said he had a letter from Mac, so of course I asked him to come in. I’ve had time to think since then. It was Mac he was after. He was the big fish, we just got caught in the net. And the letter was genuine enough, he’d took Mac in as well as me, so he must’ve been convincing, mustn’t he? Anyway, he explained he was on his way to Liverpool, and he says, “Can you put me up?” and I says, “Well, no, not really.” And then I thought, we-ell, and I says, “Unless you don’t mind sharing a bed,” and I told him about Tommy. “Is he of the homogenic persuasion?” he says. Well, I just looked at him. I says, “No, I shouldn’t think so, he’s got eleven kids, do you want the bed or not?” So he decided he was stopping and we sat down round the table, and after a while he notices the photograph of our William on the mantelpiece. I don’t know whether he knew about our William, I think he must’ve done, though, because he kept bringing the conversation round, and saying what a fine lad he was and all that. And you know I was worried sick about our William, because I knew what was going on, you see, he’d managed to get a letter smuggled out.’

‘What was going on?’

‘Well. You see, William didn’t get exemption. He… Partly he was unlucky with the Board, but you know they don’t like moral objectors anyway. If you’re religious — doesn’t matter how batty it is — you can say you’ve got the Holy Spirit in a jamjar on the mantelpiece — that’s all right, that’s fine . If you say, “I think it’s morally wrong for young men to be sent out to slaughter each other,” God help you. The Chairman of the Board actually said to our William, “You can’t be a conscientious objector because you don’t believe in God, and people who don’t believe in God don’t have consciences.” That was the level of it. Anyway, if you’re refused exemption you get handed over to the army. The military police show up and take you off to the barracks and you get given your first order, generally, “Get stripped off and put the uniform on.” And of course the lads refuse, and then it’s the detention centre. Our William was sent to Wandsworth, and it was really tough. He was stripped and put in a cell with a stone floor and no glass in the window — this is January , mind — and then, he says, they just put a uniform beside you and they wait to see how long it’ll take you to give in. Of course I was worried sick, I thought he was going to get pneumonia, but actually he said in his letter it wasn’t the cold that bothered him, it was being watched all the time. The eye in the door.’ She laughed. ‘I didn’t know what he meant.’

She looked past Prior’s shoulder, and he turned to follow her gaze. He found himself looking at an elaborately painted eye. The peephole formed the pupil, but around this someone had taken the time and trouble to paint a veined iris, an eyewhite, eyelashes and a lid. This eye, where no eye should have been, was deeply disturbing to Prior. For a moment he was back in France, looking at Towers’s eyeball in the palm of his hand. He blinked the image away. ‘That’s horrible,’ he said, turning back to Beattie.

‘’S not so bad long as it stays in the door.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘You start worrying when it gets in here.’

‘Anyway, go on. He was talking about William.’

‘Yes, he kept bringing the conversation round, and of course I was worried, and out it all came. It wasn’t just our William that was bothering me, it was all of them.’