The Husband's Story (36 page)

By now, Stan was beginning to get desperate. He stopped the first person he could see and asked the way to the Post Office. But he had picked the wrong man, an idle holiday-maker, someone who was a total stranger to the place. Stan set off himself to look, still half running, his equipment case bumping up and down with every step he took. When at last he did find it, the front door was already closed. There was a GPO notice pasted on the glass panel. It was there to direct people to the nearest public telephones: they were the ones that he had just come from on the quayside.

It was while he was standing there, breathless, that he looked up the
road and saw the blue lamp of the Police Station. Stan did not hesitate. With the coins that he had been holding in his hand all ready to feed into any telephone that was working properly, he grabbed at the strap of his equipment case and set off for the Station.

He was so sure that what he was doing was right that, once inside, he tended to be a bit brusque and peremptory. He simply walked straight up to the desk and asked if he could put through an urgent call to London. If he had been talking to a switchboard operator he could not have been more matter-of-fact about it.

‘I'll pay for it if you tell me what it comes to,' he added, just to show that he wasn't trying to get away with anything.

The relief constable behind the desk did not move. He was a lethargic, heavily-built man with large hands.

‘I'm sorry, sir,' he said, ‘this telephone is not for use by the public. It's a police telephone.'

The remark annoyed Stan: it was precisely because it
was
a police telephone that he had gone there in the first place.

‘It's very urgent,' he explained. ‘Otherwise I wouldn't be asking.'

For all the interest he showed, the policeman behind the desk might simply not have heard him. He stood there quite still, staring back at Stan. And what he saw – the russet sports jacket, the orange shirt, the fawn trousers – he did not care for. The policeman was native-born: he had lived on the Island all his life and he disliked everything about summer visitors. It was merely that he disliked this one more than most; with that floppy linen hat, the dark glasses were, he reckoned, just about the last straw.

Seeing that he was making no impression on the man, Stan bent forward. Dropping his voice, he spoke sideways into the policeman's ear.

‘It's Government business,' he confided. ‘I want the Admiralty.'

That was when, because Stan had thrust his head up so close to him, the policeman detected the smell of whisky on Stan's breath; and having detected it, he realized that this was one of those moments when the customer has to be played along gently.

He pointed up at the Station clock.

‘They're bound to be closed by now, sir,' he said. ‘Better try again in the morning.'

A sense of helplessness came over Stan and he found himself trembling again. The policeman noticed it, too, and made a mental note; junkies
were something else that one had to be on the look-out for nowadays.

‘It doesn't matter what time it is,' Stan told him. ‘There's always a Duty Officer on duty. That's the one I want. I want the Duty Officer.'

By now the policeman was quite clear in his own mind about what he was up against; and, for the moment, the part he played was more that of male nurse than police officer.

‘Is he expecting the call, sir?'

Stan shook his head.

‘And may I have his name, please?'

‘I don't know it. He's just the Duty Officer.'

‘And would he know your name, sir?'

Again Stan shook his head.

The policeman pursed up his lips and began tapping with his pencil. Then he spoke slowly and deliberately, keeping his eye on Stan throughout to make sure that he was being understood.

‘So you don't know the gentleman's name you want to speak to, and he doesn't know yours, and everyone else has gone home and he's not expecting to hear from you. That's about the long and the short of it, isn't it, sir?' Stan nodded,

‘Why not forget all about it, sir? Just go off home and get a good night's rest. I take it you're staying over here?'

This time the policeman was quite unprepared for what happened. Stan reached across the counter and caught hold of him by his sleeve.

‘But I tell you it's urgent. Very urgent. It's life and death.'

The policeman disengaged his arm.

‘Now, now, sir,' he said, ‘don't get vahlent. We can't have vahlence here.' He had carefully taken a half-step backwards out of Stan's reach, and he felt that he could afford to humour him once more. ‘If it's as urgent as all that,' he suggested, ‘perhaps you'd like to tell me about it. If I don't know what's on your mind I can't help you, can I, sir?'

Stan had taken off his dark glasses. After the day's strong sunlight, however, the effect was rather strange; the rest of Stan's face was in the bright pink of early sunburn but, around his eyes, two large white circles were showing. It gave him the forlorn, startled expression of circus make-up.

‘That's what I can't do,' he admitted, being careful to keep his voice down. ‘It's confidential, you see. Highly confidential. I'm the only one who knows about it. I can't tell anybody else, only the Duty Officer.'

‘Then I'm afraid I can't help you, sir.'

The policeman turned away as he said it. But Stan was leaning across the counter again.

‘You've heard of “Top Secret”, haven't you?' he demanded. ‘Well, that's what this is. It's Government Priority. I demand to be put through. If I can't have the Duty Officer, I want the Prime Minister.'

Because the policeman did not even bother to turn round, but merely regarded him disapprovingly over his shoulder, Stan lost his temper.

‘If you don't do what I tell you,' he shouted, ‘I'll come round and do it myself. That's what I'll do. And don't you try to stop me.'

He was leaning even further across the counter as he said it and, for a moment, the policeman thought that Stan was about to climb over. The policeman was not naturally a quick mover. Nor did he like having to exert himself. But he knew his duty. It was no good going on being patient any longer.

He lifted the flap in the counter and came round to Stan's side.

‘I'm afraid I shall have to charge you, sir,' he said.

The Station sergeant, too, knew all about holiday-makers. Year after year he'd seen it happen; too much fresh air and a touch of the sun, and they all started behaving like mental cases. But you still had to be careful, still had to keep your eye open for the genuine article, the real nutter. That was why, as soon as they had got Stan safely down below, he sent one of his young men round to Pineland Colony to make a few enquiries.

The young man was in plain clothes, and inconspicuous. With his denim trousers and his open-necked shirt, he might simply have been any summer visitor from one of the cheaper camps. He was, as a matter of fact, rather pleased to be visiting Pineland; resorts of that class were a bit off the regular police beat, and he was more than half prepared to find that he had been given a false address.

But here he had done Stan an injustice. The girl at the Trapper's Lodge reception desk knew all about the Pittses. Straight on down Sunset Trail, she told him, past the clock golf and Wolf Wood, and he'd find Hiawatha second on the left.

When he got there, however, only Marleen was at home. And she was sulking. Out on the front porch she was lying back in one of the folding chairs, not doing anything really, just sitting there with out
stretched hands, waiting for her nail varnish to dry.

But the sight of the visitor put all thoughts of nail varnish out of her mind. For a start, he was even taller than the butterfly swimmer in the black trunks; Marleen liked all tall men, and this one had nice wavy hair, too. She was only sorry that she couldn't help him more, because she didn't want him to go away again so soon. It was no use, however. She hadn't seen her Daddy since lunch time, she told him, though she was certain that her Mummy would be about somewhere. Provided the young man promised to stay there until she got back, she even offered to go off and try to find her.

The young man lit a cigarette and waited, looking after Marleen's retreating figure: she hadn't hesitated, he noticed. On she went, her curls bobbing, past the clock golf, alongside the Beaver Pool and down Chyne Canyon towards Bachelors' Row. That was where he lost sight of her. But he had no need to worry. Marleen was on a bee-line. She bounded up the shallow front steps of Powhattan as though she had lived there all her life.

It was disappointing that the double doors, with their ornamental louvres, were closed on her, and she got no answer when she knocked. She waited, and knocked again. Then, when there was still no reply, she went round to the back where the bedroom was. The shutters were closed, too. But Marleen did not pause. Reaching up she gave two smart raps.

‘Mum, there's someone to see you,' she said. ‘I think he's a policeman.'

It was the bit about the floppy linen hat and the russet sports jacket that worried Beryl most.

‘It does sound like him,' she admitted, ‘but it couldn't be. Not my husband, I mean. Not him. He'd never do anything like that. He's not that sort. He's more the quiet type like. He's…' She paused. After all, she didn't really know this tall, wavy-haired policeman who was driving her; certainly not well enough to begin exchanging confidences with him.

They had reached the Police Station by now. There were only two steps down to the cells but, as she descended them, she felt as though she were entering a deep cavern. It was partly a trick of the light. The lamp fittings in the corridor carried low-wattage, economy-class bulbs, and they were set high in the ceiling covered by a thick wire mesh. What brightness managed to escape from them was sucked up and absorbed by the dark green, waist-high dado that ran round the walls.

And inside the cell it was even worse. Beryl could not help feeling angry with Stan for ever having got himself into the place at all. The sight of him, perched on the hard upright chair in those ridiculous cruise-wear clothes of his, made her want to give him a good shaking. Not that there was any danger of that. The policeman who had brought her down had stood himself between them, so that she had not been able even to touch Stan's hand.

‘Well?' she demanded.

Stan did not look up at once when she spoke to him; and when he did raise his head, his appearance shocked her. He looked as though he had been crying. His voice, however, was quite calm and steady.

‘It's all a mistake,' he said. ‘A great big mistake. I wasn't really going to fight the policeman. That's why I need a solicitor. He ought to have been here by now. There's nothing you can do. Not now there isn't.' He gave a long, weary sigh as he said it. ‘So you go back to Marleen and don't worry. Just leave the rest to me. I'll be all right.'

Beryl drew herself up.

‘You've got sunstroke,' she told him. ‘That's all that's wrong with
you. It isn't a solicitor you want. What you want is a doctor.'

She was still saying the same thing to the wavy-haired policeman as he drove her back to Pineland; and he agreed with her. There was always a lot of it about at this time of year, he said. Nasty at the time, but no after-effects; right as rain she'd find him when they let him out in the morning.

And that was what Cliff said, too. She could not imagine how she could ever have got through that long, awful evening without Cliff. He had been there on the front porch of Hiawatha, with his arm round Marleen's shoulders to comfort her, when the police car drew up on the return journey, and he had refused to leave them ever since. At least, not quite refused. Once he had slipped across to the side-counter marked ‘Treks' inside Trapper's Lodge and come back with three portions of Uncle Remus's Kentucky chicken and fried potatoes; and the other time he had gone over to collect a bottle of Scotch that he had brought down with him. Until Beryl had recovered from the shock of Stan's arrest, he said, it was better for them to be on their own like that.

Remembering where poor Daddy was and how it had upset poor Mummy, little Marleen kept bursting into tears. But already the intervals between the outbursts were becoming extended; and, in between, she kept looking across at Cliff and wondering what it would have been like if she'd had him for a daddy instead.

As for Beryl, she had given up all pretence. She had tossed a cushion down onto the floor at Cliff's feet and was sitting there resting her chin upon his knees. He kept passing his hand across her hair, stroking it caressingly and saying ‘darling', and she kept giving little stifled sobs that showed that she was still awake. Marleen, looking on, envied them both.

Beryl had intercepted Cliff's hand by now and kept giving it little kisses and holding it pressed up tight against her cheek. And why shouldn't she? she asked herself. She knew that Marleen knew; and Marleen knew she knew.

Next morning Cliff was round again before breakfast; and he took care to come in his Mustang so that it would be there all ready to take Beryl round to the Police Station afterwards. The sheer thoughtfulness of remembering to do such a thing brought a lump to Beryl's throat. And it was thoughtful in another way, too, because she could not help noticing how strangely small and insignificant their own little hire-car
Morris looked now that she saw it alongside a really full-sized one. Somehow she felt that they would be bound to be nicer to Stan down at the Station once they saw the class of friends he had.

The events of the previous evening had upset Marleen's nervous system. She couldn't eat any breakfast, and kept saying that she felt faint. When Beryl told her to go and lie down until they got back the symptoms became suddenly worse. She felt sick, too, she said, and she had a headache. Indeed, it wasn't until Cliff said that she could come along with them that she began to recover.