The Damnation Game Part 3

"Appointment?"

"No . . ." she replied, a transparent lie which she made no real effort to carry off, "might do some shopping later on. Always makes me feel better. You know me."

No, he thought. No I don't know you. If I once did, and I'm not even sure of that, it was a different you, and G.o.d I miss her. He stopped himself. This was not the way to part with her; he knew that from past encounters. The trick was to be cold, to finish on a note of formality, so that he could go back to his cell and forget her until the next time.

"I wanted you to understand," she said. "But I don't think I explained it very well. It's just such a b.l.o.o.d.y mess."

She didn't say goodbye: tears were beginning again, and he was certain that she was frightened, under the talk of solicitors, that she would recant at the last moment-out of weakness, or love, or both-and by walking out without turning around she was keeping the possibility at bay.

Defeated, he went back to the cell. Feaver was asleep. He'd stuck a v.u.l.v.a torn from one of his magazines onto his forehead with spit, a favorite routine of his. It gaped-a third eye-above his closed lids, staring and staring without hope of sleep.

7

"Strauss?"

Priestley was at the open door, staring into the cell. Beside him, on the wall some wit had scrawled: "If you feel h.o.r.n.y, kick the door. A c.u.n.t will appear." It was a familiar joke-he'd seen the same gag or similar on a number of cell walls-but now, looking at Priestley's thick face, the a.s.sociation of ideas-the enemy and a woman's s.e.x-struck him as obscene.

"Strauss?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Mr. Somervale wants to see you. About three-fifteen. I'll come and collect you. Be ready at ten past."

"Yes, Sir."

Priestley turned to go.

"Can you tell me what it's about, Sir?"

"How the f.u.c.k should I know?"

Somervale was waiting in the Interview Room at three-fifteen. Marty's file was on the table in front of him, its drawstrings still knotted. Beside it, a buff envelope, unmarked. Somervale himself was standing by the reinforced gla.s.s window, smoking.

"Come in," he said. There was no invitation to sit down; nor did he turn from the window.

Marty closed the door behind him, and waited. Somervale exhaled smoke through his nostrils noisily.

"What do you suppose, Strauss?" he said.

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"I said: what do you suppose, eh? Imagine."

Marty followed none of this so far, and wondered if the confusion was his or Somervale's. After an age, Somervale said: "My wife died."

Marty wondered what he was expected to say. As it was, Somervale didn't give him time to formulate a response. He followed the first three words with five more: "They're letting you out, Strauss!"

He placed the bald facts side by side as if they belonged together; as if the entire world was in collusion against him.

"Am I going with Mr. Toy?" Marty asked.

"He and the board believe you are a suitable candidate for the job at Whitehead's estate," Somervale said. "Imagine." He made a low sound in his throat, which could have been laughter. "You'll be under close scrutiny, of course. Not by me, but by whoever follows me. And if you once step out of line . . ."

"I understand."

"I wonder if you do." Somervale drew on his cigarette, still not turning around. "I wonder if you understand just what kind of freedom you've chosen-"

Marty wasn't about to let this kind of talk spoil his escalating euphoria. Somervale was defeated; let him talk.

"Joseph Whitehead may be one of the richest men in Europe but he's also one of the most eccentric, I hear. G.o.d knows what you're letting yourself in for, but I tell you, I think you may find life in here a good deal more palatable."

Somervale's words evaporated; his sour grapes fell on deaf ears. Either through exhaustion, or because he sensed that he'd lost his audience, he gave up his disparaging monologue almost as soon as it began, and turned from the window to finish this distasteful business as expeditiously as he could. Marty was shocked to see the change in the man. In the weeks since they'd last met, Somervale had aged years; he looked as though he'd survived the intervening time on cigarettes and grief. His skin was like stale bread.

"Mr. Toy will pick you up from the gates next Friday afternoon. That's February thirteenth. Are you superst.i.tious?"

"No."

Somervale handed the envelope across to Marty.

"All the details are in there. In the next couple of days you'll have a medical, and somebody will be here to go through your position vis-a-vis the parole board. Rules are being bent on your behalf, Strauss. G.o.d knows why. There's a dozen more worthy candidates in your wing alone." Marty opened the envelope, quickly scanned the tightly typed pages, and pocketed them.

"You won't be seeing me again," Somervale was saying, "for which I'm sure you're suitably grateful."

Marty let not a flicker of response cross his face. His feigned indifference seemed to ignite a pocket of unused loathing in Somervale's fatigued frame His bad teeth showed as he said: "If I were you, I'd thank G.o.d, Strauss. I'd thank G.o.d from the bottom of my heart."

"What for . . . Sir?"

"But then I don't suppose you've got much room for G.o.d, have you?"

The words contained pain and contempt in equal measure. Marty couldn't help thinking of Somervale alone in a double bed; a husband without a wife, and without the faith to believe in seeing her again; incapable of tears. And another thought came fast upon the first: that Somervale's stone heart, which had been broken at one terrible stroke, was not so dissimilar from his own. Both hard men, both keeping the world at bay while they waged private wars in their guts. Both ending up with the very weapons they'd forged to defeat their enemies turned on themselves. It was a vile realization, and had Marty not been buoyant with the news of his release he might not have dared think it. But there it was. He and Somervale, like two lizards lying in the same stinking mud, suddenly seemed very like twins.

"What are you thinking, Strauss?" Somervale asked.

Marty shrugged.

"Nothing," he said.

"Liar," said the other. Picking up the file, he walked out of the Interview Room, leaving the door open behind him.

Marty telephoned Charmaine the following day, and told her what had happened. She seemed pleased, which was gratifying. When he came off the phone he was shaking, but he felt good.

He lived the last few days at Wandsworth with stolen eyes, or that's how it seemed. Everything about prison life that he had become so used to-the casual cruelty, the endless jeering, the power games, the s.e.x games-all seemed new to him again, as they had been six years before.

They were wasted years, of course. Nothing could bring them back, nothing could fill them up with useful experience. The thought depressed him. He had so little to go out into the world with. Two tattoos, a body that had seen better days, memories of anger and despair. In the journey ahead he was going to be traveling light.

8

The night before he left Wandsworth he had a dream. His nightlife had not been much to shout about during the years of his sentence. Wet dreams about Charmaine had soon stopped, as had his more exotic flights of fancy, as though his subconscious, sympathetic to confinement, wanted to avoid taunting him with dreams of freedom. Once in a while he'd wake in the middle of the night with his head swimming in glories, but most of his dreams were as pointless and as repet.i.tive as his waking life. But this was a different experience altogether.

He dreamed a cathedral of sorts, an unfinished, perhaps unfinishable, masterpiece of towers and spires and soaring b.u.t.tresses, too vast to exist in the physical world-gravity denied it-but here, in his head, an awesome reality. It was night as he walked toward it, the gravel crunching underfoot, the air smelling of honeysuckle, and from inside he could hear singing. Ecstatic voices, a boys' choir he thought, rising and falling wordlessly. There were no people visible in the silken darkness around him: no fellow tourists to gape at this wonder. Just him, and the voices.

And then, miraculously, he flew.

He was weightless, and the wind had him, and he was ascending the steep side of the cathedral with breath-s.n.a.t.c.hing velocity. He flew, it seemed, not like a bird, but, paradoxically, like some airborne fish. Like a dolphin-yes, that's what he was-his arms close by his side sometimes, sometimes plowing the blue air as he rose, a smooth, naked thing that skimmed the slates and looped the spires, fingertips grazing the dew on the stonework, flicking raindrops off the gutter pipes. If he'd ever dreamed anything so sweet, he couldn't remember it. The intensity of his joy was almost too much, and it startled him awake.

He was back, wide-eyed, in the forced heat of the cell, with Feaver on the bunk below, masturbating. The bunk rocked rhythmically, speed increasing, and Feaver climaxed with a stifled grunt. Marty tried to block reality, and concentrate on recapturing his dream. He closed his eyes again, willing the image back to him, saying come on, come on to the dark. For one shattering moment, the dream returned: only this time it wasn't triumph, it was terror, and he was pitching out of the sky from a hundred miles high, and the cathedral was rus.h.i.+ng toward him, its spires sharpening themselves on the wind in preparation for his arrival He shook himself awake, canceling the plunge before it could be finished, and lay the rest of the night staring at the ceiling until a wretched gloom, the first light of dawn, spilled through the window to announce the day.

9

No profligate sky greeted his release. Just a commonplace Friday afternoon, with business as usual on Trinity Road.

Toy had been waiting for him in the reception wing when Marty was brought down from his landing. He had longer yet to wait, while the officers went through a dozen bureaucratic rituals; belongings to be checked and returned, release papers to be signed and countersigned. It took almost an hour of such formalities before they unlocked the doors and let them both out into the open air.

With little more than a handshake of welcome Toy led him across the forecourt of the prison to where a dark red Daimler was parked, the driver's seat occupied.

"Come on, Marty," he said, opening the door, "too cold to linger."

It was cold: the wind was vicious. But the chill couldn't freeze his joy. He was a free man, for G.o.d's sake; free within carefully prescribed limits perhaps, but it was a beginning. He was at least putting behind him all the paraphernalia of prison: the bucket in the corner of the cell, the keys, the numbers. Now he had to be the equal of the choices and opportunities that would lead from here.

Toy had already taken refuge in the back of the car.

"Marty," he summoned again, his suede-gloved hand beckoning. "We should hurry, or we'll get snarled up getting out of the city."

"Yes. I'm here-"

Marty got in. The interior of the car smelled of polish, stale cigar smoke and leather; luxuriant scents.

"Should I put the case in the boot?" Marty said.

The driver turned from the wheel.

"You got room back there," he said. A West Indian, dressed not in chauffeur's livery but in a battered leather flying jacket, looked Marty up and down. He offered no welcoming smile.

"Luther," said Toy, "this is Marty."

"Put the case over the front seat," the driver replied; he leaned across and opened the front pa.s.senger door. Marty got out and slid his case and plastic bag of belongings onto the front seat beside a litter of newspapers and a thumbed copy of Playboy, then got into the back with Toy and slammed the door.

"No need to slam," said Luther, but Marty scarcely heard the remark. Not many cons get picked up from the gates of Wandsworth in a Daimler, he was thinking: maybe this time I've fallen on my feet.

The car purred away from the gates and made a left onto Trinity Road. "Luther's been with the estate for two years," Toy said.

"Three," the other man corrected him.

"Is it?" Toy replied. "Three then. He drives me around; takes Mr. Whitehead when he goes down to London."

"Don't do that no more."

Marty caught the driver's eye in the mirror.

"You been in that s.h.i.+t-house long?" the man asked, pouncing without a flicker of hesitation.

"Long enough," Marty replied.-He wasn't going to try to hide anything; there was no sense in that. He waited for the next inevitable question: what were you in for? But it didn't come. Luther turned his attention back to the business of the road, apparently satisfied. Marty was happy to let the conversation drop. All he wanted to do was watch this brave new world go by, and drink it all in. The people, the shopfronts, the advertis.e.m.e.nts, he had a hunger for all the details, no matter how trivial. He glued his eyes to the window. There was so much to see, and yet he had the distinct impression that it was all artificial, as though the people in the street, in the other cars, were actors, all cast to type and playing their parts immaculately. His mind, struggling to accommodate the welter of information-on every side a new vista, at every corner a different parade pa.s.sing-simply rejected their reality. It was all stage-managed, his brain told him, all a fiction. Because look, these people behaved as though they'd lived without him, as though the world had gone on while he'd been locked away, and some childlike part of him-the part that, hiding its eyes, believes itself hidden-could not conceive of a life for anyone without him to see it.

His common sense told him otherwise, of course. Whatever his confused senses might suspect, the world was older, and more weary probably, since he and it had last met. He would have to renew his acquaintance with it: learn how its nature had changed; learn again its etiquette, its touchiness, its potential for pleasure.

They crossed the river via the Wandsworth Bridge and drove through Earl's Court and Shepherd's Bush onto Westway. It was the middle of a Friday afternoon, and the traffic was heavy; commuters eager to be home for the weekend. He stared blatantly at the faces of the drivers in the cars they overtook, guessing occupations, or trying to catch the eyes of the women.

Mile by mile, the strangeness he'd felt initially began to wear off, and by the time they reached the M40 he was starting to tire of the spectacle. Toy had nodded off in his corner of the back seat, his hands in his lap. Luther was occupied with leapfrogging down the highway.

Only one event stowed their progress. Twenty miles short of Oxford blue lights flashed on the road up ahead, and the sound of a siren speeding toward them from behind announced an accident. The procession of cars slowed, like a line of mourners pausing to glance into a coffin.

A car had slewed across the eastbound lanes, crossed the divide, and met, head-on, a van coming in the opposite direction. All of the westbound lanes were blocked, either by wreckage or by police cars, and the travelers were obliged to use the shoulder to skirt the scattered wreckage. "What's happened; can you see?" Luther asked, his attention too occupied by navigating past the signaling policeman for him to see for himself. Marty described the scene as best he could.

A man, with blood streaming down his face as if somebody had cracked a blood-yolked egg on his head, was standing in the middle of the chaos, hypnotized by shock. Behind him a group-police and rescued pa.s.sengers alike-gathered around the concertinaed front section of the car to speak to somebody trapped in the driver's seat. The figure was slumped, motionless. As they crept past, one of these comforters, her coat soaked either with her own blood or that of the driver, turned away from the vehicle and began to applaud. At least that was how Marty interpreted the slapping together of her hands: as applause. It was as if she were suffering the same delusion he'd tasted so recently-that this was all some meticulous but distasteful illusion-and at any moment it would all come to a welcome end. He wanted to lean out of the car window and tell her that she was wrong; that this was the real world-long-legged women, crystal sky and all. But she'd know that tomorrow, wouldn't she? Plenty of time for grief then. But for now she clapped, and she was still clapping when the accident slid out of sight behind them.

II The Fox

10

Asylum, Whitehead knew, was a traitorous word. In one breath it meant a sanctuary, a place of refuge, of safety. In another, its meaning twisted on itself: asylum came to mean a madhouse, a hole for broken minds to bury themselves in. It was, he reminded himself, a semantic trick, no more. Why then did the ambiguity run in his head so often?