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turn from
sociology to literature for that, and to the theatre in particular. I
remembered an old English teacher who used to say there are three
springs of action in the drama - love, ambition and revenge - and the
greatest of these is revenge. So I started reading the Elizabethans
and Jacobeans and very soon realized he was right; In terms of
dramatic energy, nothing was more productive than revenge. Love
moved, ambition drove, but revenge exploded! I knew I had found my
theme, but it was an artistic, an academic, an autotelic choice,
having nothing to do with extraneous matters like my own situation.
    But I could see how it must look
to Amaryllis with her Freudian squint.
    I opened my mouth to argue,
decided this was the wrong tactic, and said instead, 'I'd really
never thought of that. Good God. And here's me thinking .. . well, I
never!'
    Let her see me gobsmacked, I
thought. Let her feel completely in charge.
    And all the time my brain was
racing to work out how she knew about my proposal. I'd never
mentioned it to her. Indeed I'd only put it together myself last week
and sent it off to the extra-mural department of the University of
Sheffield who had still to reply ...
    That was it! Her husband. I knew
from the grapevine he was a university teacher. Her presence at the
Syke meant it was likely it was one of the Yorkshire universities.
I'd assumed his discipline would be the same as hers, but why should
it be?
    If I was right . . . but first
check it out.
    I could see no easier way than
the most direct.
    I said, 'This would be your
husband telling you about my application, I presume? And you filling
him in about me. Funny that. Don't the usual rules of patient
confidentiality and pastoral responsibility apply in the case of
convicted felons then?'
    A fishing expedition she might
have wriggled away from, but this was a grenade lobbed into the
water.
    She did her best but she was
floundering belly-up from the start.
    'No, really, nothing sinister,'
she said, flashing me an all-sophisticates-together smile from those
tubulous lips. 'Just one of life's little coincidences. Jay, that's
my husband, happens to be in the English Department there, you see,
and he happens to chair the committee which looks at these things,
and he happened to mention that there'd been an application from
someone in Chapel Syke
    An expert
interrogator like yourself would have easily spotted the symptoms of
evasion, too many happenses, trying to cover the fact that
when she leaves here, she heads home and chats away quite happily
with her poncy husband about the funny things her banged-up clients
have been telling her, fuck professional confidentiality, probably
livens up the chat round the dinner table with little anecdotes
plucked from our soul-baring confessions. For a moment I felt
genuinely indignant till I recalled that most of what I personally
had told her was crap, more arsehole-baring than soul-baring.
    I said, 'Well, that's handy.
Maybe you could give me a hint how my application's going, seeing as
they're taking forever to respond to me direct. I was thinking of
having a word with the Visitor about it. He's always banging on about
prisoners' rights.'
    That gave her something to think
about. Lord Threlkeld, our Chief Visitor, must be familiar to you. I
bet he's one of old Rumbletummy's pet hates, being a notorious
bleeding heart who likes nothing better than a good case of
professional misconduct either from the police or the prison service
to wave at his peers in the House.
    She gathered her wits and
answered, 'It's not for me to say, of course, but I think they're
really impressed by the quality of your proposal. I know that Jay in
particular is keen to see that you get approval ... all things being
equal, of course
    Oh my Amaryllis, is chess one of
the sports you play in the shade? I wondered, hiding a smile as I
interpreted her words. Good old Jay would love to be your advocate,
but that might be difficult if you're making some silly