And All That Jazz Episode 10
Lizzy had hardly slept since Charlie had been arrested.
Each night she lay thinking of him in his prison cell, how lonely and frightened he must be.
She’d visited the police station several times, trying to explain that he would never have stolen from her.
The jowly sergeant had merely smiled indulgently, as if she were a child frustrated at losing a toy.
Lizzy paced the living-room carpet, railing against the injustice.
“The inhumanity of it, treating our young men in such a way after everything they sacrificed.” She huffed. “Bea, are you listening?”
“Of course I am, but it’ll do you no good shouting at me,” Bea pointed out.
Lizzy threw herself into a chair.
“I know, I’m sorry,” she apologised. “But if I don’t think of a solution, Charlie will be locked away for something he didn’t do.”
“Are you sure he didn’t do it?” Bea asked, fixing Lizzy with a calm stare.
“Of course I am.”
“All of this isn’t just because you have a crush on him?”
Lizzy didn’t have a crush. It was more than that.
She was about to open her mouth, then snapped it shut.
Was all of this just because she liked him?
She’d got to know Charlie over the weeks, seen how his manager Don and his colleagues valued him.
Then there were the times they’d talked, when he told her about his thoughts, his feelings . . .
Lizzy took a deep breath.
“No. I truly believe he’s innocent,” she stated.
Her friend nodded.
“Well, there’s only one thing you can do,” Bea said. “Stop moping around here and find a way to free him.”
“But I’ve tried,” Lizzy protested.
“You’ve tried stamping your foot and shouting. You need logic and a plan.”
Lizzy thought about Bea’s words as she lay in bed that night, feeling restless.
The next morning she headed out, not for the police station this time, but for Edgbaston.
“How are you? I did visit.” Dora’s tone was defensive.
Lizzy felt a twinge of guilt at sending Bea to the door when her sister had called.
“Can I come in?” she asked, and a few minutes later they were seated in the parlour.
Lizzy had been thinking what to say during the walk across town, trying to construct an argument without being emotional.
But now she was faced with her sister, the words jumbled.
“Dora, I have something to ask you,” she finally said. “It’s very important to me.”
Dora folded her hands on her lap, sitting straighter.
“What is it?” she questioned.
“It’s Charlie,” Lizzy replied.
“How is he?”
“They won’t let me see him.”
“How dreadful.”
“It is dreadful!” Lizzy jumped to her feet, pacing the carpet between the fireplace and the door.
“I need your help, Dora,” she finally admitted.
“My help?”
Dora looked at her with an expression of pure bafflement, as if no-one had expected anything of her before.
“It’s really such a little thing,” her sister said. “Mrs Kendrick’s one of your ladies who knit, isn’t she?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Already there was a hint of caution in Dora’s voice, but Lizzy ploughed on.
“And she’s the wife of a chief inspector of police, isn’t she?” Lizzy asked.
Dora’s posture shifted, her shoulders tightening.
“Well, surely, if you speak to her and she speaks to her husband . . .” Lizzy hinted.
“I hope you see how silly that request is,” Dora replied.
The energy poured from Lizzy like water from a rusty bucket.
“But why?” she protested.
“How could I possibly ask Mrs Kendrick that?” Dora stated. “You just don’t see how it would make our family look, Lizzy.”
“You have met Charlie. You met him just the other day,” Lizzy highlighted.
“But I don’t know him,” Dora countered.
“Know him? Do we know the same people, mix in the same circles?”
“Lizzy, that’s not what I meant –”
“That’s exactly what you meant. None of that should matter because it should be enough that I like him.”
Pain engulfed Lizzy’s chest like a bonfire.
She’d thought Dora was softening under the influence of Vincent, but she was the same unfeeling creature she’d always been.
“I really don’t care about Charlie’s background, but how do you know he isn’t a thief?” Dora asked. “Freddie said he was a conscientious objector.”
It was like a stab to Lizzy’s heart that Dora could listen to Freddie, of all people, over her.
“So he should go to jail, innocent or not, because he refused to kill people?” Lizzy stated.
“I didn’t mean that,” Dora defended herself. “All I meant was . . . Did he tell you he didn’t fight?”
“No, he didn’t,” Lizzy answered.
“Well, if that’s the case, surely you can see he might not be entirely honest about other things.”
“I can’t listen to any more of this,” Lizzy said. “I must say, Dora, that you sound more like Mother every day.”
Fury boiled inside her at the thought of Charlie, judged by his job and his accent and his class.
Judged because he didn’t want blood on his hands.
“If you’re going to live like that, Dora, you may as well have died along with Walter,” she added.
Lizzy crashed out of the room, through the front door and on to the street.
She ran and ran until she couldn’t breathe and her tears choked her.
To be continued…