The Book of Evidence (30 page)

Prison. T h i s placc. I have described it already.

My first visitor w a s a surprise. "When they told me it w a s a w o m a n I expected D a p h n e , straight f r o m the airport, or else my m o t h e r , and at first w h e n I c a m e into the visiting-r o o m 1 did not recognise her. S h e seemed y o u n g e r than ever, in her shapeless pullover and plaid skirt and sensible shoes. She had the u n f o r m e d , palely freckled look of a schoolgirl, the dullard of the class? w h o cries in the d o r m at night and is m a d on ponies. O n l y her marvellous, flame-coloured hair p r o c l a i m e d her a w o m a n . J e n n y ! I said, and she blushed. I t o o k her hands in mine. I was absurdly pleased to see her. I did not k n o w then that she w o u l d s o o n p r o v e m y usurper. J o a n n e , actually, she m u m b l e d , and bit her lip. I laughed in embarrassment. J o a n n e , 1 said, o f course, f o r g i v e m e , f m s o confused j e s t n o w . W e sat d o w n . I b e a m e d and b e a m e d . I felt light-hearted, almost skittish. I m i g h t have been the visitor, an old bachelor friend of the family, c o m e to see the p o o r duckling on the school open day. She had b r o u g h t m y b a g f r o m C o o l g r a n g e . It l o o k e d strange to m e , familiar and yet alien, as if it h a d been on an i m m e n s e , transfiguring v o y a g e , to another planet, another g a l a x y , since I had seen it last. I enquired after my m o t h e r . I w a s tactful e n o u g h not to ask w h y she had not c o m e . Tell her I ' m sorry, I said. It s o u n d e d ridiculous, as if I w e r e apologising for a b r o k e n a p p o i n t m e n t , and w e l o o k e d a w a y f r o m each other furtively and w e r e silent for a long, a w k w a r d m o m e n t . I have a n i c k n a m e in here already, I said, they call me Ivionty, of course. S h e smiled, and I w a s pleased. W h e n she smiles, biting her lip like that, she is m o r e than ever like a child. I cannot believe she is a schemer. I suspect she w a s as surprised as I w h e n the will w a s read. I find it hard to see 212
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her as the mistress of C o o l g r a n g e . Perhaps that is what my mother intended — after
her
, the drip. A h , that is u n w o r t h y of m e , my n e w seriousness. I do not hate her for disinheriting me. I think that in her w a y she was trying to teach me something, to m a k e me look m o r e closely at things, perhaps, to pay m o r e attention to people, such as this p o o r clumsy girl, with her freckles and her timid smile and her almost invisible eyebrows. I am r e m e m b e r i n g what D a p h n e said to me only yesterday, through her tears, it has l o d g e d in m y m i n d like a thorn:
You knew nothing
about us, nothing!
She's right, o f course. She wa s talking about America, about her and A n n a Behrens and all that, but it's true in general — 1 k n o w nothing. "Yet I am trying.

I watch, and listen, and b r o o d . N o w and then I am

*

afforded a glimpse into what seems a n e w world, but which I realise has been there all along, without my noticing. In these explorations my friend Billy is a valuable guide. I have not mentioned Billy before, have I? He attached himself to me early on, I think he is a little in love with m e . He's nineteen — muscles, oiled black hair, a killer's shapely hands, like mine. O u r trials are due to open on the same day, he takes this as a lucky o m e n . He is charged with m u r d e r and multiple rape. He insists on his innocence, but cannot suppress a guilty little smile. I believe he is secretly p r o u d of his crimes. Y e t a kind of innocence shines out of him, as if there is something inside, s o m e tiny, precious part, that nothing can besmirch. "When I consider Billy I can almost believe in the existence of the soul. He has been in and out of custody since he was a child, and is a repository of prison lore. He tells me of the various ingenious m e t h o d s of s m u g g l i n g in dope. For instance, before the glass screens w e r e put up, wives and girlfriends used to hide in their m o u t h s little plastic bags of heroin, which w e r e passed across during lingering kisses, 2 1 3
.

swallowed, and sicked-up later, in the latrines. I was greatly taken with the idea, it affected me deeply. Such need, such passion, such charity and daring — when have I ever k n o w n the like?

W h a t was I saying. I am b e c o m i n g so vague. It happens to all of us in here. It is a kind of defence, this creeping absent-mindedness, this torpor, which allows us to drop o f f instantly, anywhere, at any time, into brief, n u m b stretches of sleep.

Joanne. She c a m e to see me, brought me my bag. I was glad to have it. T h e y had confiscated most of what was in it, the prison authorities, but there were s o m e shirts, a bar of soap — the scented smell of it struck me like a b l o w — a pair of shoes, my books. I clutched these things, these icons, to my heart, and grieved for the dead past.

B u t grief, that kind of grief is the great danger, in here.

It saps the will. T h o s e w h o give w a y to it g r o w helpless, a wasting lethargy comes over them. T h e y are like mourners for w h o m the period of m o u r n i n g will not end.

I saw this danger, and determined to avoid it. I w o u l d w o r k , I w o u l d study. T h e theme was there, ready-made. I had D a p h n e bring me big thick b o o k s on D u t c h painting, not only the history but the techniques, the secrets of the masters. I studied accounts of the methods of grinding colours, of the trade in oils and dyes, of the Hax industry in Flanders. I read the lives of the painters and their patrons. I b e c a m e a minor expert on the Dutch republic in the seventeenth century. B u t in the end it was no g o o d : all this learning, this information, merely built up and petrified, like coral encrusting a sunken wreck. H o w could mere facts c o m p a r e with the amazing k n o w l e d g e that had flared out at me as I stood and stared at the painting lying on its e d g e in the ditch where I dropped it that last time? T h a t k n o w l e d g e , that knowingness, I could 214
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not have lived with. I look at the reproduction, pinned to the wall above me here, but something is dead in it.

S o m e t h i n g is dead.

It was in the same spirit of busy exploration that I pored for long hours over the newspaper files in the prison library. I read every w o r d devoted to my case, read and re-read them, chewed them over until they turned to flavourless mush in my mind. I learned of Josie Bell's childhood, of her schooldays — pitifully brief — of her family and friends. N e i g h b o u r s spoke well of her. She was a quiet girl. She had almost married once, but something had g o n e w r o n g , her fiance went to England and did not return. First she w o r k e d in her o w n village, as a shopgirl.

Then, before g o i n g to Whitewater, she was in Dublin for a while, where she was a chambermaid in the Southern Star Hotel. T h e Southern Star! — my G o d , I could have gone there when I was at Charlie's* could have taken a r o o m , could have slept in a bed that she had once made! I laughed at myself. W h a t w o u l d I have learned? There w o u l d have been no m o r e of her there, for me, than there was in the newspaper stories, than there had been that day when I turned and saw her for the first time, standing in the open french w i n d o w with the blue and gold of s u m m e r at her back, than_there was when she crouched in the car and I hit her again and again and her b l o o d spattered the w i n d o w .

This is the worst, the essential sin, I think, the one for which there will be no forgiveness: that I never imagined her vividly enough, that I never m a d e her be there sufficiently, that I did not m a k e her live. Yes, that failure of imagination is my real crime, the one that m a d e the others possible. W h a t I told that policeman is true — I killed her because I could kill her, and I could kill her because for me she was not alive. A n d so my task n o w is to bring her back to life. I am not sure what that means, but it strikes 218
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me with the force of an unavoidable imperative. H o w am I to m a k e it c o m e about, this act of parturition? M u s t I imagine her f r o m the start, f r o m infancy? I am puzzled, and not a little fearful, and yet there is something stirring in me, and I am. strangely excited. I seem to have taken on a new weight and density. I feel g a y and at the same time wonderfully serious. I am big with possibilities. I am living for two.

I have decided: I will not be swayed: I will plead guilty to murder in the first degree. I think it is the right thing to do. Oaphne, when I told her, burst into tears at once. 1 was astonished, astonished and appalled. W h a t about
me
, she cried, what about the child? I said, as mildly as I could, that I thought I had already destroyed their lives, and that the best thing I could do was to stay a w a y f r o m them for as *

long as possible — forever, even — so that she might have the chance to start afresh. This, it seems, was not tactful.

She just cried and cried, sitting there b e y o n d the glass, clutching a sodden tissue in her fist, her shoulders shaking.

T h e n it all c a m e out, the rage and the shame, I could not m a k e out the half of it through her sobs. She went back over the years. "What I had done, and not done. H o w little I knew, h o w little I understood. I sat and gazed at her, aghast, my m o u t h open. I could not speak. H o w was it possible, that I could have been so w r o n g about her, all this time? H o w could 1 not have seen that behind her reticence there was all this passion, this pain? I was thinking about a p u b I had passed by late on one of my night rambles through the city in that week before I was captured. It was in, I don't k n o w , Stoney Batter, s o m e w h e r e like that, a working-class p u b with protective steel mesh covering the
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w i n d o w s and o l d vomit-stains a r o u n d the d o o r w a y . As I w e n t past, a drnnk s t u m b l e d out, and for a second, b e f o r e the d o o r s w u n g shut again, I had a g l i m p s e inside. I w a l k e d on w i t h o u t pausing, carrying the scene in my head. It w a s like s o m e t h i n g by J a n Steen: the s m o k y light, the crush of red-faced drinkers, the old b o y s p r o p p i n g up the bar, the fat w o m a n singing, displaying a m o u t h f u l of b r o k e n teeth. A kind of s l o w a m a z e m e n t c a m e o v e r m e , a kind of bafflement and grief, at h o w f i r m l y I felt m y s e l f excluded f r o m that simple, u g l y , roistering w o r l d . T h a t is h o w I seem to h a v e spent my life, w a l k i n g by open, noisy d o o r w a y s * and passing on, into the darkness. — A n d yet there are m o m e n t s t o o that allow me to think I am not w h o l l y lost. T h e other day, for instance, on the w a y to yet one m o r e r e m a n d hearing, 1 shared the police van with an ancient w i n o w h o h a d been arrested the night before, so he told m e , for killing his friend. I c o u l d not i m a g i n e h i m h a v i n g a friend, m u c h less killing one. He talked to me at length a s w e b o w l e d along, t h o u g h m o s t o f w h a t h e said w a s gibberish. He had a b l o o d i e d eye, and an e n o r m o u s , w e e p i n g sore on his m o u t h . I l o o k e d o u t the barred w i n d o w at the city streets g o i n g past, d o i n g my best to i g n o r e h i m . T h e n , w h e n we w e r e r o u n d i n g a sharp bend, he fell o f f his seat on t o p of m e , and I f o u n d m y s e l f h o l d i n g the o l d brute i n m y arms. T h e smell w a s appalling, of course, and the rags he w o r e had a slippery feel to t h e m that m a d e me clench my teeth, but still I held h i m , a n d w o u l d not let h i m fall to the floor, and I even —

surely I am e m b r o i d e r i n g — I think I m a y even h a v e clasped h i m to me for a m o m e n t , in a gesture of, I d o n ' t k n o w , of s y m p a t h y , o f c o m r a d e s h i p , o f solidarity, s o m e t h i n g like that. Y e s , an explorer, that's w h a t I a m , g l i m p s i n g a n e w continent f r o m the p r o w of a sinking ship. A n d don't m i s -

take m e , I d o n ' t i m a g i n e for a second that such incidents as
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this, such forays into the new world, will abate my guilt one whit. But m a y b e they signify something for the future.

Should I destroy that last paragraph? N o , what does it matter, let it stand.

Daphne brought me one of Van's drawings. I have pinned it up on the wall here. It is a portrait of me, she says. O n e huge, club foot, sausage fingers, a strangely calm, cyclopean eye. Q u i t e a g o o d likeness, really, when I think about it. She also brought me a startling piece of news. J o a n n e has invited her and the child to c o m e and live at Coolgrange. T h e y are going to set up house together, my wife and the stable-girl. ( H o w quaintly things contrive to make what seems an ending!) I am not displeased, which surprises me. Apparently I am to live there also, when I get out. O h , I can just see myself, in Wellingtons and a hat, mucking out the stables. B u t I said nothing. Poor Daphne, if only — ah yes, if only.

Maolseachlainn too was horrified when I told him of my decision. D o n ' t worry, I said, Pll plead guilty, but I don't want any concessions. He could not understand it, and I had not the energy to explain. It's what I want, that's all. It's what I must do. Apollo's ship has sailed for Delos, the stem crowned with laurel, and I must serve my term.

By the way, M a c , I said, I o w e a plate to Charlie French.

He
did
not get the j o k e , but he smiled anyway. She wasn't dead, you k n o w , when I left her, I said. I wasn't man enough to finish her o f f Fd have done as m u c h for a d o g .

(It's true — is there no end to the things I must confess?) He nodded, trying not to show his disgust, or perhaps it was just shock he was hiding. Hardy people, he said, they don't die easily. Then he gathered up his papers and turned to go. We shook hands. T h e occasion seemed to require that small formality.