Homeward Bound
Ed took the bus from the prison to the station, the same bus used by all the visitors returning home. He wanted to tell them all that he had done his bird, it was over, and he was feeling on top of the world, but it wouldn’t have been fair. These women, for they were all women, were the wives, partners, or mothers of the cons, and were all returning to a home with an emptiness, a home where their man was missing. Last week, Pelina, his partner, had been on this bus, but today she was waiting at home for him, no doubt aching, as he was, for that first frantic hug, that first slow kiss.
When they got to the station, most of the women went onto the same platform as him, but didn’t stand in groups chatting, as he expected. They all stood or sat alone, their body language all saying the same thing, ‘they’re all prison widows, I’m not with them’. Ed had twenty minutes to wait for his train, and he took great pleasure in watching the world go by, seeing things he hadn’t seen for five years. Three or four pigeons walked about the platform pretending to ignore the people there. One of them had a stump of a foot, but strutted about, nonetheless, as if it had two good feet. Why not? It was free.
A little old lady came to the chocolate machine on the wall, just near where Ed was sitting. She bought her bar of chocolate and walked away without giving it a second thought. Something that Ed hadn’t been able to do these last five years.
As Ed turned his head to watch the old woman make her way down the platform, he felt the cool breeze on his face, in a way that he hadn’t felt for five years, for the exercise yard at the prison was totally enclosed. He took his ticket out of his pocket to look at it for the twentieth time since they had given it to him in the prison that morning. It was a single. Dead right, he thought, there’s no way I’m going back. This time, I’m going straight.
When the train pulled into the platform, Ed chose a non-smoking carriage, and he was surprised at how much choice he had. He had given up smoking while inside, one of the few positive things to come out of the last five years. He put his holdall in the overhead rack and took a seat.
A woman sat down in the seat opposite, fortyish he guessed at first. Then he decided she was younger, but her unimaginative drab clothes and short middle-aged hairstyle did her no favours. She sat quietly, reading her book, never looked at him. He noticed her perfume, Estee Lauder, the same trace that Pelina left behind in the visiting area last week, reminding him that Pelina was not that far away now.
Beautiful name, Pelina. Her father had insisted on christening her with the name of the winning horse that had earned him a welcome sum of money in the betting shop the day she was born. Just as well it hadn’t been Red Rum.
He was dying to see her again. To be able to hold her hand, kiss her, even just to talk to her without a screw standing within earshot, was something he had yearned for more and more during the long five years. Her weekly visits had been so frustrating. Not that he would have missed them for anything, and he valued her loyalty. Quite a few of the wives and partners of the lags had strayed. His cellmate, Colin, sent down for grievous bodily harm, had suffered this fate.
‘What’s biting you today?’ he’d said to Colin after lights-out one night. ‘You’d think you were in solitary. Something bugging you?’
‘No, nothing.’
There was a long silence, and Ed was beginning to drift off to sleep. Then,
‘There is actually.’
‘There is what?’
‘Something bugging me. Got a letter this morning. From Barbara. She’s finished with me. It’s all over.’
Ed didn’t know what to say. If you’re inside, you can’t just phone your woman, try and make up. You can’t go and speak to her, treat her special, make her feel good. Better to let go, not think about it.
‘You’re better off without her, I reckon.’
‘Yea, you’re probably right.’
‘You’ll be able to play the field when you get out. You’re as free as a bird.’
‘Free as a bird. Doing bird, and free at the same time.’ He laughed without humour at his own joke. ‘Better off without her. See if I care.’
It had been an hour later when Ed woke, and it took him a few seconds to figure out the muffled sounds coming from the other bunk. He lifted his head to listen, then there was no doubt. Colin, who spawned terror in anyone who crossed him, had his head under the pillow, and was crying bitter tears.
Ed turned his thoughts to Pelina, his beautiful Pelina. She was tall, five-ten, same height as him in her heels. Took pride in her appearance. Spent ages at the hairdressers getting her hair tinted, spiky, carefully messy. Spent hours at her dressing table with her array of make-up bottles and brushes perfecting the natural look. Spent whatever time it took to select clothes from her charity shop wardrobe, to lengthen them, shorten them, adapt them, mix and match them, until she was satisfied with a unique and trendy outfit.
Pelina liked to talk, cheerful non-stop chatter, which was surprising, considering her parents. Her father was a clerk in a solicitor’s office, whose best effort at interesting and sustained conversation, as far as anybody could remember, was, ‘looks like rain’. Her mother, Norma, was a librarian, whose expression was permanently disapproving, always making you wish you hadn’t said whatever you had just said.
Ed’s thoughts took Pelina away from conversation, into the bedroom, but his fantasy was taken from him as the train slowed, brakes complaining, into his station. The woman opposite looked up briefly, and Ed nodded to her and smiled, but she didn’t respond, pointing her eyes back to her book.
Ed only had ten minutes to wait for his bus. The sun was shining and he felt great. The bus pulled in and the doors folded open, and Ed could restrain himself no longer. He flung out his arms and cried out to the driver,
‘I’m free!’
The driver looked at him dispassionately.
‘You gotta bus pass?’
Ed didn’t try to explain, just stumped up the money for his fare. He went upstairs and sat on one of the front seats to get a better view of the world, and to see his home before he got there.
Pelina would knock up a special meal tonight, he knew it. Steak, chips, and fried onions was his favourite, with a few beers. And to follow, maybe Pelina’s special, baked apple pie with cinnamon. He smiled to himself. Cinnamon for the sinner man. But Ed’s stomach was taking exception to these thoughts, because he had been so busy saying goodbye to his friends in the nick this morning that he had had no time for breakfast. Good friends, they were. Most people wouldn’t trust them with their plastic cutlery, let alone their family silver, but he would trust them with his life. Friends you make when you are up against it, up against the world, are the best friends you can make. When would he see them again?
For the second time today, he arrived at his destination almost without realising it, while his mind was anticipating events.
After five years, he was home.
Unfortunately, Pelina wasn’t. At first, he feared that something had happened to her, an accident at work, or on the way home, and he had a moment of panic when he realised he had no way of contacting her. Then he convinced himself that there was a simple explanation, and decided to sit on the step and wait. It was late afternoon and a number of people who lived on the estate passed by. Some carefully ignored him, though they knew him well enough. Others said hello, nice to see you, before hurrying off into the remainder of their lives.
After an hour, he decided to go down to the off-licence and buy a few cans with some of the money Pelina had left for him at the nick last week. It would give him something to do, and anyway, if Pelina had already got some beers in, the extra wouldn’t go amiss. But when he got there, the off-licence was closed, boarded up, and derelict. Just opposite, Davidson’s Corner Shop, which would normally have been closed this late in the afternoon, was now Patel’s and was very much open with an array of goods outside the shop on the pavement. He went in out of curiosity and was delighted to find that Mr Patel had both ice-cold beers and a warm welcome. Nonetheless, he was left with the uncomfortable feeling that the world had changed in his absence, without even bothering to let him know.
He had to wait another hour when he got back, and took the opportunity to use up a couple of the cans. Then, at long last, after what had seemed like an extension to his sentence, Pelina arrived.
‘Oh Ed, you’re back. I knew it was today, because it’s the same day Deirdre was going to get her crown fitted, cos I was going to leave work early at the same time, but they had phoned her up, Deirdre that is, to say they had three emergency abscesses, three in the same day, can you believe that, and could she, Deirdre that is, come in tomorrow instead, they could fit her in at 10:50 and just then Norman came over, he’s the dayshift supervisor, the one whose aftershave smells of pine like lavatory cleaner, Deirdre says he thinks it’s eau-de-toilette, anyway, he asked me to switch with Betty, and because she hadn’t gone off to the dentist, Deirdre that is, and I was working at her phone, Betty’s that is, it went clean out of my head….’
‘Pelina.’
‘What?’
‘Come here.’
Pelina did what she was told, and at long last, Ed took her in his arms to give her that first long hot kiss that he had been aching for. But almost straight away, she wriggled free.
‘Not here, Ed. What will the neighbours say?’
The next morning, when Ed woke, Pelina had already left for work. The morning sun was forcing thin light through the curtains onto unfamiliar surroundings. He felt like a stranger in somebody else’s home, and indeed, like a stranger in somebody else’s head, for a hangover throbbed between his ears, and his tongue was one size too big for his mouth. The lingering smell of last night’s cigarette smoke made him feel sick. At least, he didn’t have slopping out to do.
Last night hadn’t worked out as he’d planned. Pelina hadn’t done her shopping on the way home because she had got her days mixed up, so Ed didn’t get his steak. When she had gone to the fish and chip shop later, he had enjoyed the silence. He loved the sound of her voice and her undemanding conversation, but he had become used to an hour a week of it, and he would have to go into training to accommodate more than that.
The night of passion hadn’t lived up to expectations either. Not surprising, really, it had been the first time in five years. She had been a little bit too tense and he had been a little bit too eager, and the beer had gone to his head. When they lay in bed afterwards, each feeling bad for the other, Pelina had lit a cigarette, and Ed had to fight a strong desire to have one. Things would improve, if he was patient, things would improve.
Things didn’t improve two nights later, when Pelina’s mother, Norma came round. Norma didn’t approve of Ed, but then she didn’t approve of anybody.
‘So you’re back, then,’ was the nearest she got to a warm welcome.
Because Norma was a librarian, and hence a person that ordinary citizens respected and looked up to, she didn’t think it right that she should be seen buying lottery tickets. So Pelina bought the tickets for her, under strict instructions on which numbers to use, and to double up whenever there was a rollover. Norma came round on a Thursday night to pick up the tickets, check them minutely, and give Pelina the money she owed her. Though Norma and Pelina were in the kitchen, the door was ajar, and Ed overheard Norma say,
‘And you’d better not leave that money lying around, there are criminals about.’
That comment hadn’t bothered him. It was later when Norma had left, and Pelina had gone to bed, Ed went into the kitchen to brew a pot of tea. There was no money on the kitchen top, Pelina had put it away. Before Ed had been sent down, Pelina left money everywhere. Money for the rent, money for the coalman, savings for holidays. Ed checked the usual places out of curiosity, the glass vase on the mantelpiece, the spare sugar basin in the sideboard. He’d have found more cash in a skinflint’s open hand.
The following night, Ed peeled his gloves off in the dark silence of an unoccupied house. It had been too easy. Not only was there an unlocked window at the back of the house and a sturdy drainpipe that enabled him to reach it, but the burglar alarm hadn’t been set. Whoever owned the house was asking to be burgled, probably for the insurance, Ed thought.
The haul was good. The main pull had been the jewellery, several quality stones, exquisitely set, in individual boxes wrapped in a small canvas bag, hidden without originality in the freezer. He had also selected the best of the small porcelain pieces, two of them quite valuable, from a display cabinet, and packed them carefully in his holdall. Some of the smaller paintings that adorned the walls might have been worth a closer look, but they weren’t worth the trouble. He had enough.
The burglar alarm control box was in the cloakroom near the front door. This was one that could be primed to alert the local police station, so he set it accordingly, and switched it on. His movement as he went to sit down on the stairs would trigger the alarm, and he figured it would be twenty, twenty-five minutes before they got there. That was OK, he would be patient.
He was going home.
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