PORTRAIT OF A LADY

                         

                                                                    Chapter Five

                                                             Locked Up But Free

 

The months and the years progressed, and for Michael and Ollie there were mixed blessings. They had been careful not to overstay their night releases, and had, whenever possible brought some kind of gift for their new conspirator. Curiously, as they got older he showed less interest in them. Ollie was first to realise the change whereas Michael 'release' followed about a year later when his services were transferred to some of the newer, and younger, arrivals. Consequently and gradually concern for their 'safe' return each night waned to disinterest. They had by this time acquired a key so they reached a point where the warder was as of no more interest to them as they were to the warden.

          Michael could not wait for his sixteenth birthday to arrive, not that he knew what he was going to do with himself or where life may lead him. He had no idea where he would live or how he would go about getting a job. Nothing had been done to prepare him for life on his own, but just the same, he couldn't wait.

          However, there were some things he did know. How to break into a car for instance, or better still, to seize the opportunity of an open window. He had regularly gone on shoplifting sprees, though he would admit, he did not find it as easy as some people suggested. But he got away with it more times than he was spotted, and his young legs usually got him out of trouble. Moreover he was always ready to take advantage of someone's carelessness. An unattended shopping bag or a bulging back pocket became obvious and tempting targets. And, as in the past he knew that if he was caught they would only send him back to the reform school!

          "Ha," he would shout to the wind, "so what! That's where I am anyway."

          So the big day could not come soon enough and he was sure he would get by. There were of course, some slight changes that he could not have anticipated once he was released from the centre. Although detention was like a prison, it was home, albeit home without much in the way of home comforts; but still it was home. At home he knew his way around, everything was familiar, and he knew what was what; who was who; and what he could get away with. And he didn't go hungry. He always had a bed at night, and there were people around him. He even came to see the wardens in a different light, even those who used to visit him in the night and abuse him. He was by now one of the senior boys, with a certain authority and had for a long time no longer the object of some of the wardens perverted desires, the younger inmates being more to their liking.

          But despite having benefited from a philosophy beyond his years, the last part of his sentence had been lonely since Ollie, his only real friend, had been released more than a year earlier. Michael had never tried to rationalize what basis there had been for their unlikely friendship, but he knew he was glad of it. They had maintained contact with each other, Michael finally having someone to write to. Knowing that when he was released their lives would once again revolve around each other.

          Finally the day came when Michael was sixteen and life in the detention centre was no more; he was free. But freedom had its price, and it didn't take long for him to realize that what he had thought of as home, despite it being a prison, had been the one stable factor in his life. It came as a shock to realize that without it he he might even be dead. Moreover, leaving that place produced in Michael some unexpected feelings. Paradoxically, while he looked forward to the ending of the night visits by those who sought to invade his body, when that finally came about he had been surprised to discover that even that did not work out as he had expected. He had become used to it and just let it happen. Thoughts of pain and humiliation had long been forgotten, and strangely, in his unsophisticated way he had come to think of it as a kind of loving. After all, apart from 'Ollie' they were all the family he had.

          His final act before he left the place that had been his home for the last few years was being called into the administrative department. It was a grand tittle for a grubby little office with two desks at which sat two equally grubby ladies labouring on their noisy typewriters. An ancient Imperial on the back desk, while up front, where the occasional visitor might chance to see it, a brand new Olivetti. Behind the desks a door led to the superintendent's office. It was to there that Michael was directed.

          Mr Wilding, the superintendent, who Michael had seem from time to time; but never at night; was small, thin, and unsmiling. Releasing a young offender into the bosom of society was not it seemed something that gave him any joy. He offered no wise council, no words of encouragement or support, no vision of a bright future. No hope.

          His only task it seemed was to present his one time charge a folder made from thin card on which was written his name, and an address which was no longer relevant to Michael, time having erased it from his memory as surely as had that wartime bomb. Mr Wilding asked Michael to open the folder which contained a variety of forms, some of which required a signature. One such he noticed as he dutifully applied his mark, absolved High Marsh Centre for Boys from any further responsibility for Michael Selby's future.

          Also in the folder was the brown envelope which he had mentioned to Ollie. He could just about make out some words written by an unknown hand in pencil, which said simply 'Michael Selby 1940'. Michael was somehow reassured to be once again in possession of that old brown envelope for there was his name. It was as though during the last few years he had been robbed of his identity, and in an odd way with that old brown envelope in his hand he felt something of himself again.

          Michael had hoped that Ollie would be waiting for him when he left the centre, but he was not to be seen. Not that he had much luggage. Just one suitcase which he had carried from place to place as long as he could remember. He could not recall where it came from but it had always been battered and broken, and now required a piece of string to augment one of the two snap locks, which refused all his attempts to ‘snap it, and for it to stay ‘snapped’.

          It had been a little before Ten O'clock when the door to the detention centre closed behind him, but it was a new day with a new life ahead, and Michael was excited with anticipation. He was eager to resume his life with Ollie who had promised to be waiting for him, but it was well past mid-day when finally; and reluctantly, he accepted the fact that his friend would not be there after all. It had not occurred to him until now that he had not received a letter from him for a few weeks; not in itself unusual, but he still thought he would be there waiting for him.

          All the excitement and nervous anticipation vanished as the realization of his predicament sunk in. Not least of which was that he was on his own with nowhere to live and little money. By the time he found himself in the town centre it was getting dark, and when finally he found a post office it was closed. His release voucher would have to remain  unusable until the morning. Fortunately it was not a cold night, and there was no sign of rain and Michael knew of several places where he might comfortably spend the night. Many was the time when their 'night visits' were over they had crept out of their dormitory and into the night, where they would engage in whatever nocturnal misbehaviour that lay open to them, responding to any opportunity that chanced their way. More often than not this was petty stuff, unlikely to make the papers. While they stopped short of breaking into premises, a carelessly unlocked door, or an open window was another matter. Just the same, they were careful not to over-do it, sensibly understanding that if they wished these night time escapes to continue, they would have to make sure they returned before their absence was discovered and result in any unintended consequences.

          Michael's knowledge of the town centre was therefore pretty good, and a night or two under the stars might not be too bad. But a night or two turned out to be three weeks. Three weeks before he and Ollie were to meet; three weeks during which all of Michael's fantasies turned out to be false hopes; visions of what may lay ahead no more than chaff in the wind. Only the mild weather stopped it from being a nightmare, but in those three weeks any lingering characteristics of Michael the boy, were gone forever.