The Winner of this year’s Short Story Competition

1st Prize – Sheila Llewellyn with:

Making Changes

A woman stumbles out into the prison exercise yard. Mr. Barrett looks through the viewer and twists the chrome rim of the long lens.

‘Is this our first subject, Sergeant Harris?’ He stands aside so I can see.

She’s thirty yards away, but through the lens, she jumps to within twenty feet of me.

‘Looks like her.’ Slight build, dark hair piled up on top. ‘Yes, it’s her. It’s Evelyn Manesta.’

‘Not much light, but it will suffice.’ Mr Barrett loads the half-plate into the camera. ‘Thank you, Miss, three-quarter profile ... Set the Telecentric and Bob’s your uncle!’ He presses a small lever on the front of the camera.

Click down. Silence. Click back up.

Our first target of the day.

Caught.

We’re in Holloway Prison, Mr B and me, in a Black Maria parked near the suffragettes’ wing. There’s no April sun and it’s as cold as charity inside the van. They don’t have windows, the Marias, and we had to knock out the back door ventilators to get a clear view of the prisoners.

‘A most peculiar assignment, Sergeant,’ said Mr B, on the first day we were setting up. He was trying to fit the lens through the ventilator gap. ‘Interesting, but peculiar.’ I have to agree. I’ve worked for Special Branch, Suffragette Unit, since April 1911. That’s nigh on two years, and I’ve never had an assignment like this one. Anyone catching sight of us might think the pair of us peculiar too, Mr B in his tweeds and paisley neckerchief, me in my sober three-piece. But he’s one of the best in the business, that’s why Surveillance use him so much.

He’s like a magician, showing off his tricks with a flourish. The Telecentric lens is his star turn. It made its first appearance back in late February, amidst the frayed velvet Ottomans in the front office of his studio, when I called to discuss the assignment.

‘We need photographs,’ I said. ‘Of the suffragettes.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘On the march?’

‘No. In prison.’

He raised another eyebrow.

‘And we need them before the Cat and Mouse Act comes in.’

‘Ah! The Cat and Mouse! All you read about in the papers, these days.’ He paused.

The new Prisoners’ Act would be law in April. It said that if the suffragettes went on hunger strike in prison, they would not be force-fed any more. They would be left to grow weak, then set free. When they got strong again, they would be put back in prison. Like a cat plays with a mouse, the women said: catch, torment, let go and catch again. They were already calling it the Cat and Mouse Act.

‘Still, if it brings an end to force feeding … a change for the better, surely?’ said Mr. B.

‘But remember, when they grow weak, they’ll be let out.’

‘You can re-arrest them, can’t you?’

I nodded. ‘If we can catch them. But once they’re out, we won’t know where they are.’

‘That’s the trouble with mice. Let them escape and they lead you a merry dance.’

‘So we need photographs. To keep track of them. But you must do it in secret.’

He disappeared into his studio, and came back carrying a handsome box of Morocco leather, and in it, the Telecentric, cradled in blue baize. ‘Hide ourselves away with this little marvel, Sergeant, and Bob’s your uncle!’

I’m even more acquainted with the little marvel now, after a week cooped up in the Maria.

The women come out in dribs and drabs to walk around the grim wasteland.

We click away until the light begins to fail.

***

‘You cannot deciper who this is.’ Inspector Jarvis is important enough at Scotland Yard to have a fire in his grate. He is standing with his back to it, warming himself, looking at the photograph in his hand.

‘Mr Barrett couldn’t quite catch her, Sir–’

‘She’s too far away.’

‘She headed off round the far end–’

‘No use at all.’

He comes back to his desk. He has a look of King George about him, a look I suspect he cultivates. The same neat moustache and greying goatee, the same sleepy-lidded eyes. His eyelids are down a notch at the moment, a sure sign he’s displeased. He picks up another photograph.

‘This one is blurred.’

‘She must have moved, Sir. We can take her again–’

‘May I remind you, Harris, this damn Cat and Mouse Act becomes law tomorrow!’

He throws the photographs down on the desk and jabs at the faces in them. ‘And these damn women will cause mayhem.’ He’s a church-twice-on-Sunday sort of man, Inspector Jarvis, and does not swear. But the Cat and Mouse Act has him very out of temper.

He picks up the photograph of Evelyn Manesta and snorts with exasperation. ‘Her face is too much to the side. She’s a special, remember. She’ll be trouble when she gets out. We need a clear picture of the face.’

‘I’ll inform Mr Barrett, Sir.’

‘I’ll inform Barrett, myself, Sergeant.’

***

Cat and Mouse Friday. Another bleak sky as I make my way out to the Maria.

No Mr. B. Instead, Inspector Jarvis is waiting, pacing around, and a ferret-faced man with sandy hair is setting up the camera in front of the iron gates.

‘Barrett cost us three shillings an hour and we weren’t getting what we wanted,’ says the Inspector. ‘Young Jellicoe here has been trained specially. He can do it for nothing.’

Jellicoe nods at me.

Inspector Jarvis points to a recess near the iron gates, where a wardress waits in the shadows, and says to me, ‘Go and help her out, if need be.’

She looks strong, the type they usually use with lunatics. I stand beside her and catch a whiff of her meaty breath. She won’t need my help.

Evelyn comes out. The gates clang shut. She stops, stares and frowns at the camera.

‘Miss Manesta,’ Jellicoe shouts, then looks into the camera, so she can’t see his face.

She shouts back. ‘No! I will not succumb!’ Her voice has a soft Lancashire burr.

The wardress grabs her from behind. Evelyn struggles. The wardress clings on, wrapping a hefty arm around her neck.

I stay in the recess.

Evelyn grows still and her head lolls, marionette-fashion. She moans a little. The wardress keeps her arm around her neck and lifts Evelyn’s chin up with the edge of her hand, forcing her head up, until Jellicoe says, ‘That should do it.’

Click. Silence. Click.

The gates open again and the wardress bustles Evelyn inside.

Jarvis comes from behind the van. ‘That,’ he says, ‘was a good morning’s work.’

Jellicoe smiles, showing too many tiny teeth.

***

Evelyn Manesta has been on hunger strike for four days and is about to be released. Her photograph lies on my desk. The more I look at it, the more uneasy I become. My eye is drawn first to the wardress’s hand holding up Evelyn’s chin. A white hand, snaking out from the black sleeve of her uniform.

Then I look at Evelyn’s face.

She’s closed her eyes and she’s smiling. I was behind her so I could not see what she’d done. It almost looks as though she’s having a lark for the camera. Then I look closely and see that there’s anxiety around those closed eyes. I remember the Northern voice protesting and the choking sounds. Even when she was gasping for breath, she did her best to ruin the picture.

‘Brazen. Quite brazen, shouting no,’ says Jarvis over my shoulder.

Plucky, I think. Plucky.

‘We cannot use it, Sir. The wardress’s arm around her neck–’

‘You’re right, Harris, we cannot use it. Not after the outcry over the damn Cat and Mouse.’ He pauses. ‘But we can use this one, I think.’ He hands me another photograph.

I don’t understand what I’m seeing. It’s the same photograph of Evelyn.

But something is missing.

‘It’s the wardress. She’s not there. The arm and hand round Evelyn’s neck have gone. So have the fingers gripping Evelyn’s arm, the wardress’s skirt, her left foot poking out behind Evelyn’s foot. All gone.

No trace of her at all. There’s only Evelyn. Now, where the wardress’s arm and hand once were, Evelyn’s scarf lies neatly folded round her neck.

Holloway Prison has also disappeared. No doorway, no iron gates, no blackened brick of the prison building. Nothing in the background save a pale swirl of greyish colour.

And the number ten, Evelyn’s special number, has been added at the bottom.

I must look like a goldfish to Inspector Jarvis.

‘How … who–?’

‘Jellicoe has been working with the experts. People who know what they’re doing. Get him to circulate copies of this one, immediately,’ and he walks away, almost jaunty.

I stare at both photographs for some time. Then I think of Mr B.

***

His studio is an Aladdin’s cave of cameras, all gleaming brass and burnished wood and square-cornered bellows smelling of red Russia leather. He is surprised but pleased to see me and soon we are taking tea, served in fine china cups on an old papier mâché tray.

We chat about this and that and reminisce about how cold it was in the Maria.

I clear my throat. ‘Mr Barrett, I have a question regarding photographs.’

He rubs his hands with glee.

‘Is it possible to change a photograph? Take something out? Or put something in?’

He gives me a queer look. Then he leads me through to his room at the back and sits me down at his workbench.

He is the magician again, revealing his etching knives and his special pencils, long fine points of lead screwed into wooden holders.

‘Retouching. That’s what we call it. Add a little here. Take away a little there.’

‘But how? How do you do it?’

He brings out two photographs. The first shows a mother and child, sitting by the side of a lake. The child’s head rests on her mother’s shoulder. The second photograph shows just the mother. He selects a glass plate negative from a rack. ‘I outlined the mother’s shape with a soft pencil.’ He picks up a knife. ‘Then I etched away the child’s face.’ He mimes the motion over the plate. ‘Just a few light strokes.’

That explains the disappearance of the wardress.

‘I put the mother’s shoulder back in, using the finest lead points for highlighting and the folds of the dress.’

I think of Evelyn’s scarf inserted around her neck.

‘Then I blocked out the lake with an opaque paint.’

That’s how Holloway Prison was painted out.

He leans forward and steeples his fingers under his chin. ‘All photographs are but a version of the truth, Sergeant. And if the truth needs a little tweak here and there, well then. We have the means to do it.’ He sighs. ‘ I can do the basics. But I will have to become an expert if my business is to prosper.’

‘Are there such experts in London?’

‘I know of only one. Works for the Aerograph Company, I believe, so he will have access to the latest airbrushing equipment.’ He shakes his head. ‘Expensive.’

That must be who Jellicoe is working with.

‘Making changes, Sergeant.’ He sounds sad as he picks up the glass plate negative of the mother and child and holds it up to the light. ‘Sometimes, it’s a matter of survival.’

***

I take one more look at the photograph. Evelyn, being throttled by the wardress. Evelyn, reduced to a target, a special with a number.

The first is the truth, the second a version of the truth.

Mr Barrett’s voice plays in my mind. Making changes. Survival.

I place the truth in a red confidential file.

I place the version of the truth in an envelope with a note to Jellicoe.

Evelyn Manesta. Suffragette Surveillance, Target Number 10.

Copy and circulate.

Sheila Llewellyn says:

I worked overseas for twenty years in Iran, Africa, South East Asia and Europe, then came back to the UK. I’ve always written, but never had the confidence to ‘go public’.

I did a Writers Bureau course some eight years ago, but didn’t capitalise on it as I moved to Northern Ireland, so settling into a new way of life took up most of my time.

I worked as a psychologist, specialising in cognitive behavioural therapy for Post Traumatic Stress, but that little writing bug would just not go away, so I slowly made changes to my life style which meant that I could devote more time to writing. I also did an Open University Open degree, studying Classics and the History of Art, rekindling my love of history.

I don’t think I’ll stop writing now – I don’t think I could, that little writing bug has a voracious appetite!

Critique by Competition Adjudicator, Iain Pattison

I love this story. It’s a stunner – a gem of an entry. On one level it’s a fascinating and enthralling period tale of the cat and mouse games between the Suffragettes and the authorities determined to crush their campaign for votes for women. It brings the titanic Edwardian clash between female protestors and the unsympathetic and heavy handed police stunningly alive, encouraging us to see a very familiar era of history from a fresh and unusual perspective; to experience the tension and suspicion of the times.

But, on a deeper level the story is also a commentary on the abuse of power – on how spin, weasel words and airbrushed images all contribute to feed us lies, half-truths and deceptions, to make us prey to the arch manipulators of media, politicians and advertisers.

It’s a tale of THEN that has much to tell us about how we live NOW. And that intriguing duality projects it to parable status.

Yet Making Changes is much more than just a powerful piece of questioning, challenging story-telling, it’s a master class in excellent writing technique. Read it once to simply enjoy the story – then go back and marvel at the skilful, deft brushstrokes.

The piece is tightly written, almost Spartan, demonstrating that less really is more. Every word earns its keep, is well chosen, and performs a vital function, sometimes several functions at the same time.

Take the title: Making Changes – it refers obviously to the alterations made to the photographs, but also nods to the fundamental changes taking place in society at the time and cleverly signals that the story’s hero Sergeant Harris is about to change, rebelling against the corruption that dismays him.

Look next at the way the author conjures up a sense of period with seemingly throwaway descriptions – “it’s as cold as charity inside the van” and “gives me a queer look”. Evelyn is “brazen” and “plucky.” These expressions have a wonderfully old fashioned feel and convey much more historical authenticity than whole passages of scene-setting background information.

This carries through to the dialogue. “Barrett cost us three shillings an hour and we weren’t getting what we wanted.” And “No, I will not succumb!”

And then there’s the deep understanding of the “power of three” – how descriptions have an almost magical extra punch when they feature three elements. Inspector Jarvis has “the same neat moustache and greying goatee, the same sleepy-lidded eyes.” The doctored picture of Holloway has: “No doorway, no iron gates, no blackened brick of the prison building.” And Barrett’s studio is “All gleaming brass and burnished wood and square cornered bellows smelling of red Russia leather.”

But it is the ending – the subtle, understated, intriguing, deliberately ambiguous climax to this story that is most impressive. It invites the reader to guess what happens. Does Sergeant Harris revolt, ensuring the stark, disturbing ruse is exposed? Or does he “succumb” to the dishonest wishes of his witless boss?

This is a marvellous story. My only complaint is that I wish I’d written it!