Susie looked away. Her face had gone bright red. She bit her lip and stared at a toddler on his mother's lap. She opened her hand and discovered a wadded-up tissue, but didn't dare use it.
'Do you want to see the boys?' Susie glanced again at the toddler and back at him. 'Frank?'
'No. Not here. I don't want them to see me in here. Besides, I'll be out soon, lawyer's very confident, well as confident as a twat can be. Did you bring all my papers, letters from the C.O.?' He then remembered he was holding them. 'Oh yes, yes, thanks… cigarettes?'
Susie pushed the bag towards him. Dillon stared at it, eyes glazed, nodding like a mechanical doll. There was a silence between them, a dreadful chasm of silence too wide to shout across. Susie's fingers crept forward, nearly touching his, then curled up, like a plant withering in the frost. Dillon was dumb, no words left in him, no sounds at all, except screams.
Susie burst out brightly, 'I've got a job – restaurant. Pay's not bad, and Mum's been… I'll look round for something better. Mr. Marway's sorting things out with the bank, his family have rallied round. I don't think he'll lose his business. I passed on any accounts we still had left. Not much, but…' Huge glistening tears rolled down her cheeks, dripped off her chin. '… the Chinese an'…'
Susie gulped but kept right on.
'Shirley and me came here together, she's really showing now. I see her when I can, an' – oh Harry, he gave her his microwave an' I gave her the Hoover from the office. Mum was uptight, said she could've done with it.' Susie used the tissue to wipe her face, blotchy red and swollen. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'
The bell rang. Two minutes to changeover. Twenty in, twenty out.
Dillon came back to life. He took a deep breath and said breezily, 'Well, that's it. Thanks for coming all this way. Give the boys my love. You tell them I joined up, gone abroad. Maybe tell 'em I'm with Jimmy in Colombia. I can get the lads to send cards, put my name on for me…'
'I won't lie to them, Frank.' Susie's eyes were moist but she wasn't crying any more. 'There's been enough of that. I'll see you in two weeks' time. You sure there's nothing you want…?'
The bell rang again. Final warning.
'… they said I can send in paperbacks.'
'No.' Dillon was deathly pale. 'I'm fine.'
Susie pushed herself up, the wet tissue tight in her fist. She came round the table and bent to kiss him. Dillon averted his face, and she kissed his cheek. A warden passed by, making sure nothing was exchanged except this brief, formal token of affection, and carried on pacing, eyes on the next couple.
Women were moving along the aisles towards the main door. Some of the children were crying. Susie followed the woman and the toddler from the next table. She turned back, raising her voice above the shuffle and squeak of feet on the composition floor.
'I forgot to tell you – I passed my driving test!'
Sitting with his hands clasped on the table in front of him, Dillon slowly turned his head. He nodded, and with a supreme effort, forced a frozen smile. Susie looked at him across the unbridgeable chasm of perhaps ten feet that separated them. She took a pace towards him. Her hand came up, pressed flat against her chest, fingers splayed. She turned and followed the woman and toddler out.
Dillon looked straight ahead, no expression on his face, no movement in his body, arms and shoulders locked solid, his spine an iron bar, holding onto himself with a rigid, unbearable tension, so that the single thin strangulated sound that escaped from him seemed to come from nowhere, from the ether, or a part of him that has no name in human anatomy. A silent cry from his heart, as if it were slowly being torn apart, his sense of loss consumed him, remaining locked tightly inside as he was led back to his cell. There the loss remained, as if held in by steel straps. He was sitting on his bunk, dead-eyed, unaware of where he was or of the man lying prone on the next bunk. Held inside him, as if bound by mental steel straps, was the mounting fury, like a fever. He had no one and no place to let it free. He knew he had brought this on himself, it was his fault, no one else's.
Dillon refused his evening meal. He remained in his cell and it took all his will power to uncoil his stiffened body and lie flat, rigid, eyes staring at the ceiling.
Harry Travers also lay on his back, his head resting on his hands, staring at the ceiling. He had no visitors, he only had his sister in Manchester, and she hadn't the money to come down, not that he had even told her where he was. Apart from her he had nobody. He'd written to Susie, told her to give his microwave to Shirley, for safe keeping, as he didn't want the Pakki landlord nicking it whilst he was inside. There were only a few other things he'd mentioned to Susie to keep safe for him, he had nothing else. He was going to write to Trudie, but didn't bother. He wasn't foolish enough to think she cared what happened to him – he was a fifty-five-quid full job, nothing more. Well, he had been given a few freebies, but mostly he paid up, paid for his loving, always had. In the darkness of his cell he began to remember all the tarts, in all the countries, he'd had some beautiful women, and some dogs, but he'd never had any long-term relationship, never had felt the need. He'd almost been snared once, a long, long time ago. The girl had lived next door to his auntie, a skinny little thing with a funny lop-sided smile. He had been her first and she had believed he would marry her, maybe he had even promised, he could no longer remember that far back, but he'd seen a lot of her just before he joined up. On his first leave he had called round, but she was going steady with a bloke from the local factory, he shoved over a few trinkets he'd bought for her, told her he hoped she'd be happy and got legless with a mate who'd arrived home to find his wife in bed with his best friend. Women were like that, couldn't trust them, and Harry reckoned he'd lost nothing, not missed out. He gave a few moments over to Jummy, wondered how he was getting on, and decided that when he got out, he'd sign up, do a mercenary stint. He wasn't cut out for civvies, not enough action, the action made up for the loneliness. He seemed to see the word printed in front of his eyes, and for the first time in his life he knew he was a lonely man. He turned over and buried his face in the pillow, suddenly wanting to have someone, even that funny, skinny little girl who had lived next door to his auntie's.
Cliff had been knocked around in the exercise yard, his lip was swollen, and he felt exhausted. Seeing Shirley had really upset him. The baby was showing now, and he knew her Dad had gone apeshit, and all the wedding plans had been cancelled. Well, there would be one person who was pleased, Shirley's Dad, he'd never liked Cliff, now he must be rubbing his hands together, saying to poor Shirley, 'I told you so, what did I tell you…'
Cliff wrote copious letters, every spare moment he had, he wrote to Shirley, explaining over and over that it was all a terrible mistake, that he would be out and they could still get married, she would have the baby and they would be okay. He would get a decent job, he would provide, he would make it, and Shirley had promised to stay with him, no matter what her father said. She knew he would be out in time for the baby, and even joked in her letters that poor Norma would then have to take her wedding dress in, as she would be back in shape.
Cliff wrote to his mother and father, his brothers and sisters, he wrote to everyone he could think of, desperate for everyone to know that it was all a terrible mistake. Hunched on his bunk, hardly able to see the page in the darkness, he started another letter, one he had begun over and over. It was to Frank Dillon, an attempt to make him understand why he had to tell the law about Newman, that he knew he should have kept his mouth shut, knew that Dillon was sorting everything out, but he had just been unable to keep quiet. The letter was written, rewritten and torn up time after time. He had sent round a note to Harry, and it had really hurt him when it had been returned. Dillon had not looked at him, or spoken to him, and that had hurt, he had always believed Frank Dillon was his friend, his best friend, and he tried one more time to put into words what he felt.