Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

    The Sergeant looked approvingly across his desk at the anxious young couple with the baby in the buggy.
   
    The man spoke first.
   
    ‘I’m - we’re George and Vicki Hunter - ’.
 
    Pause for formalities.  The young woman was looking more and more nervous.

    ‘Vicki has something to tell you.  She came in of her own free will, didn’t you, Vicki?’

    ‘Yes’, whispered a scarlet Vicki.

    ‘Well, madam, you come with me, and we’ll see if we need to take a statement.  If you’d like to take your little boy to our play area, sir - ’.

    ‘She’s a girl.  Delia’.

    The Sergeant glanced pointedly at the blue babygro the child was wearing, and indicated the play area.

    Half an hour later the Sergeant entered the play area alone.  George jumped to his feet, upsetting the baby’s pile of blocks and making her howl.

    ‘You haven’t arrested Vicki - ’.

    ‘Not at all, sir.  Your wife is in the canteen having a well-earned cup of tea.  Which gives me a chance to have a word with you’.

    Delia started crawling round collecting blocks again.  ‘Fine little chap - sorry, girl’, commented the Sergeant.

    ‘What do you want to ask me about?’  George looked blank.

    ‘I’m afraid you may be partly responsible for what your wife’s got mixed up with’.

    ‘Me?  I’d never have anything to do with people like that!’

    ‘Of course not, sir, but why did your wife?’

    The baby tried to reach between George’s legs for one of the blocks.  He back-heeled it to her distractedly.  Meanwhile, the Sergeant began to speak.

    ‘A nice young married woman. At home all day with a baby. Feels she is isolated. Feels she isn’t fulfilling her potential - ’.

    ‘But Vicki doesn’t feel like that!’

    ‘Do you know?  Have you asked her?  I blame the feminists.  Back in the nineties they led women to believe they could have it all.  Do with out men - ’.

    ‘Well, I know Vicki hated that telesales centre - ’.

    ‘And then one day another young woman calls on her.  A neighbour.  Also with a baby.  Invites her over for a coffee.  That’s how it starts’.

    The baby put one block on top of another and cried out in triumph.

    ‘There are other women there.  They talk about the men in their lives, and things generally.  Tell funny stories.  As women do when they don’t like to complain.  Complain about being excluded and neglected - ’.

    ‘Vicki’s not - ’.

    ‘When was the last time you bought your wife flowers?  Or asked her what kind of day she had?’

    ‘We have our own garden and I don’t have to ask Vicki about her day, she tells me’.

    The Sergeant gave George a meaningful look as the baby played quietly.

    ‘Women have always got together’, went on George.  ‘Probably always bitched about men, too.  How was Vicki to know there was anything sinister involved?’

    ‘Things are different now, sir.  We used to be able to recognise the enemy within.  There were marches.  Banners.  Publications.  Things you could see.  Get hold of.  Now we have a different type of enemy and they organise differently, too.  Phone calls.  Women getting together.  Favours asked for friends’.

    ‘But there’s no harm in that’.

    ‘That’s what people think, sir.  Until a work scheme is sabotaged.  A tolerance zone invaded.  A defence installation damaged.  Do you  recognise this woman?’

    ‘That’s Janet.  She stopped overnight with us, on the sofa - Go on, tell me’.

    ‘We know Janet well.  She was on her way to Scotland, a blockade keeping supplies out of the Trident base.  There were a hundred arrests, but we can’t count on convictions - you can’t even rely on juries these days.  You see what we’re up against, sir?  If only men of goodwill, and right-thinking women, would get together on this, we could stop the rot’.

    ‘What do you want me to do?’

    ‘If you would persuade your wife to go on seeing these women.  She need only report back to you.  We’ll arrange - ’.

    ‘I don’t think Vicki wants to see any of those women again.  It must be her own decision.  There won’t be any comeback if she refuses, will there?’

    ‘There won’t.  These arrangements only work where there’s trust.  Now, why don’t you get a sitter for your little boy and take your wife out for a meal tonight?  She deserves it’.

    George separated a wailing Delia from the blocks and went to find Vicki.  In the corridor, he passed a young policeman carrying a sheaf of papers.  Vicki’s statement?  He felt too embarrassed to meet the young man’s eyes.

    The young man left the station and entered a public callbox with fax facility.

    ‘Mum?  Guess who came in?  Vicki Hunter’.

    Pause.

    ‘You bet she did. Better warn them. I’ll fax you the names - ’.