Chapter 21
'Logic dictates,' said Mr Gosdyke, 'that we should look at this problem rationally. Now I know that's difficult but until we have definite proof that your husband is being held at Baconheath against his will there really isn't any legal action we can take. You do see that?'
Eva gazed into the solicitor's face and saw only that she was wasting time. It had been Mavis' idea that she should consult Mr Gosdyke before she did anything hasty. Eva knew what 'hasty' meant. It meant being afraid of taking real risks and doing something effective.
'After all,' Mavis had said, as they drove back, 'you may be able to apply for a court order or habeas corpus or something. It's best to find out.'
But she didn't need to find out. She'd known all along that Mr Gosdyke wouldn't believe her and would talk about proof and logic. As if life was logical. Eva didn't even know what the word meant, except that it always produced in her mind the image of a railway line with a train running along it with no way of getting off it and going across fields and open countryside like a horse. And anyway when you did reach a station you still had to walk to wherever you really wanted to go. That wasn't the way life worked or people behaved when things were really desperate. It wasn't even the way the Law worked with people being sent to prison when they were old and absent-minded like Mrs Reeman who had walked out of the supermarket without paying for a jar of pickled onions and she never ate pickles. Eva knew that because she'd helped with Meals on Wheels and the old lady had said she never touched vinegar. No, the real reason had been that she'd had a pekinese called Pickles and he'd died a month before. But the Law hadn't seen that, any more than Mr Gosdyke could understand that she already had the proof that Henry was in the airbase because he hadn't been there when the officer's manner had changed so suddenly.
'So there's nothing you can do?' she said and got up.
'Not unless we can obtain proof that your husband really is being held against...' But Eva was already through the door and had cut out the sounds of those ineffectual words. She went down the stairs and out into the street and found Mavis waiting for her in the Mombasa Coffee House.
'Well, did he have any advice?' asked Mavis.
'No,' said Eva, 'he just said there was nothing he could do without proof.'
'Perhaps Henry'll telephone you tonight. Now that he knows you've been out there and they must have told him...'
Eva shook her head. 'Why should they have told him?'
'Look, Eva, I've been thinking,' said Mavis, 'Henry's been deceiving you for six months. Now I know what you're going to say but you can't get away from it.'
'He hasn't been deceiving me the way you mean,' said Eva. 'I know that.'
Mavis sighed. It was so difficult to make Eva understand that men were all the same, even a sexually subnormal one like Wilt. 'He's been going out to Baconheath every Friday evening and all that time he's been telling you he's got this prison job. You've got to admit that, haven't you?'
'I suppose so,' said Eva, and ordered tea. She wasn't in the mood for anything foreign like coffee. Americans drank coffee.
'The question you have to ask yourself is why didn't he tell you where he was going?'
'Because he didn't want me to know,' said Eva.
'And why didn't he want you to know?'
Eva said nothing.
'Because he was doing something you wouldn't like. And we all know what men don't think their wives would like to know, don't we?'
'I know Henry,' said Eva.
'Of course you do but we none of us know what even those closest to us are really like.'
'You knew all about Patrick's chasing other women,' said Eva, fighting back. 'You were always
