Changes in Visiting

We were a motley crowd, bound into a group only by a common purpose, yet determined not to claim any connection with each other. Embarrassed, lonely and worried, we stood in depressed silence until, at some signal only the front ranks could see, we began to pour through the door. Hurriedly, we traversed dark corridors each to find the door we sought and which was unlocked at our knock and locked again behind us. Inside was a room furnished with small tables and upright battered chairs, all standing on and reflected in the highly polished brown linoleum. Massive windows bounded one wall, too high to give a view of anything but the changing moods of the sky. We forced bright items of information on 'outside' through lips that longed for a cup of tea, and handed over sweets, cigarettes and things to read. Conversation did not flow. Sometime later we left and retracing our way down the corridors, could catch a glimpse, through an inner window, of an exercise yard of trodden mud surrounded by high walls. These glimpses and the locking of doors, with the accompanying jangle of keys, were to stay in the memory for years.