Breaking Out

by Janice Nix

  Going blank seemed like the best way to survive.

  I kept my mind locked down and accepted the routine of prison life. I couldn’t look ahead, at the long stretch of time I was facing. When thoughts like that appeared, I shut them out. I shut down my feelings too. I stayed in the day.

  I tried to concentrate on practical problems – like my flat, and who was looking after it. When Scully was released from Swaleside, he moved in. At least now it wasn’t standing empty. In a few months’ time, he said, he was planning to go home to Jamaica for a while. He’d make sure my rent would still be covered.

  Before he left, he came to Morton Hall to visit me. It was good to think of him flying far away into the sun.

  ‘I’m off to take care of some business,’ he told me. ‘But don’t you worry about anything. Just keep your chin up, and I’ll be back to see you.’

  ‘Sure thing, babe.’

  ‘Remember, princess – you will reach the other side,’ Scully said. He fixed his gaze on me. ‘You and me – we’ll be there together.’

  ‘You’re getting soft!’ I teased him. ‘Never thought I’d hear you be romantic!’

  ‘Never thought it myself.’ He smiled his most mischievous smile. ‘But times move on. Just remember what I say to you. It’s not so long. Then it’s you and me.’

  I held on tightly to that thought.

  On 3 August 2002, Scully died suddenly in Jamaica. We would never be together again.

  When the news arrived, I was paralysed at first with shock and disbelief. Then I felt my grip on my emotions start to break. I struggled with the mad desire to search for him. If, somehow, I could walk the pavements of south London, I was sure that I would see him, strolling along in his paint-stained old boots, swinging his carrier bag. How could he not be there? Next came fear, as though Scully had abandoned me. I was almost angry – how could he just leave? Finally, a deadweight of grief crushed me down until I could scarcely stand.

  Whenever I’d been frightened and lonely in the past, I had summoned up my strength, and that had been enough. But now it wasn’t working any more. Scully was a memory. One day, I thought, I will be memory too. What will that memory be?

  Who am I? said a whisper in my head. And what am I? What kind of mother? What kind of woman? If I died tonight, what is my legacy? What message would I leave behind?

  Sometimes I’d imagine that Nadia had suddenly arrived. I longed and longed for her to come. But if I saw her one day in the visiting room – what would I say to her? When she accused me of breaking my word, of letting her down yet again – how would I answer?

  A mother, she had said to me, is someone who is there. She was right. I hadn’t been there when she needed me the most. Could she ever forgive me?

  ‘And how are you doing, my dear?’

  The woman was in her late sixties, with short, steel-grey hair. She gave a cheerful smile as she spoke. Her voice was brisk and upper middle class.

  It was association time, when we were let out of our cells. I was queuing up for tea from the big prison urn. The tea was stewed for hours and there wasn’t any milk, just that powder people use to whiten coffee. But tea is always tea. There was something reassuring about it.

  I said to her, ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. Last night I heard you crying.’

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Nah. I wasn’t.’

  The coldness in my voice pushed her away.

  ‘Very well. I didn’t mean to bother you.’ She turned briskly to the urn, picked up a plastic cup from the table and served herself with lukewarm, dishwater-coloured tea.

  As my cell door slammed shut every night, fear and panic gripped me. It was reality check time.

  Who am I? What am I?

  A drug dealer. A convict. A thief.

  I heard voices in my head. Mummy’s voice. Nadia’s. I longed to see them, to hold them, to speak to them. But I was all alone.

  I dreaded the crunch as the door was locked behind me. I was so afraid of the emptiness, I was close to crying out. Perhaps I sometimes did. Perhaps the woman by the tea urn heard my cries, even though I wouldn’t admit it. Perhaps I wasn’t so tough any more.

  ‘Good morning, my dear.’ The grey-haired woman greeted me again. Last time she’d tried to talk to me, I’d not been very friendly.

  ‘Good morning,’ I replied. She smiled at me and held out her hand.

  ‘I’m Edna.’

  ‘Janice,’ I replied.

  ‘Been here long?’

  ‘Five months.’

  ‘And what d’you think of the tea?’

  I pulled a face.

  ‘I quite agree,’ she said. ‘It’s absolutely awful.’

  ‘Look – thanks for asking how I was the other day,’ I said to her.

  ‘That’s perfectly alright.’ Edna smiled again, in her brusque manner. ‘I heard you lost your husband. I’m very sorry indeed.’

  When I thought of Scully, my eyes filled with tears. The heavy weight inside my chest pressed down. But I knew how he would smile if he’d heard somebody calling him my husband. Stuck between the tears and the smile, I wiped my cheeks.

  ‘Thanks,’ was all I could manage to say.

  Edna reached into her pocket. She handed me a grey and tatty tissue.

  ‘What was your husband’s name?’ she asked.

  ‘His name was –’ But before I could say it, I was properly crying.

  ‘I would love to hear all about him,’ she said, ‘if it would help. I think it might. I’m a widow too, you see.’

  I was so touched by her kindness that I cried even more.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’re going to get some tea.’

  I’d never had a chat quite like the one I had with Edna. She was inside because of a land dispute. Her husband had died and she was living alone in the cottage they had shared. But then her next-door neighbour built a garage which overlapped the boundary of her land. She lodged an official objection. The man’s behaviour became anti-social. He began to play loud music late at night to annoy her. He clearly thought that he could bully a widow in retirement into dropping her case.

  But he’d reckoned without Edna. She hired a JCB and knocked his garage down. When she told me this, I laughed so much that I spat my tea right across the cell.

  ‘You did whaat?’

  ‘Demolished it. Completely. Just a pile of bricks,’ said Edna tartly. ‘You should have seen his face. Dreadful chap.’

  ‘And then you got arrested?’

  ‘For criminal damage. The law must take its course. But that awful little man. He thought he could get away with anything. I made him think again.’

  I shook my head in amazement. Respect to Edna. She might be over 60 and alone, but she wasn’t taking bullshit from anyone. And she gave me the first proper laugh I’d had in ages.

  But in the middle of the night – there was still only me. I stared into the emptiness. The voice in my head was unrelenting. I forced myself to listen. Here I was, face to face with myself.

  Janice – you fucked up. You have made bad choices. These are the consequences. You have walked the wrong path and this is the penalty. Now it’s time to pay.

  Listener lives here, read the poster on the prison wall. It explained that there were inmates trained as listeners, part of a national scheme to help others in distress. Somehow, without quite knowing why, I connected with this. I asked a prison officer to tell me more about it.

  ‘Are you serious, Janice? It’s tough, you know. You have to do a course.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Oh yes, I’m serious.’

  The officer was right. Listener training was a serious thing. I took a sixteen-week course run by the Samaritans. And what I learned changed my life.

  Prison listeners help those at rock bottom. They learn to use body language, tone of voice and eye-contact to connect. How to recognise crisis and danger. How to be with someone in distress, what to say and what not to, and how sometimes the most important
thing is to give a person time. There is no need to be uncomfortable with silence.

  Although I didn’t know it then, these were some of the skills I would use much later on, when I had made a new life. I couldn’t have imagined that life, back then in Morton Hall. But the training the Samaritans gave me was how it all began. I will always be grateful.

  I passed the course. Now I could be called on any time. Listeners carried mobile phones so that prison officers could ring us and ask if we were able to see someone at any time of day, or even in the night. Prisoners could also ask directly for help.

  Not long after I started to work as a listener, I was taken in the middle of the night to the cell of a girl who was threatening to take her own life. She was new inside, a first-timer, struggling to cope. I knew how bad that could be. I was nervous as I walked along the corridor, hoping I could find the right words.

  When I entered, she was sitting on her bunk with her knees drawn up to her chest. She didn’t look at me. I hesitated.

  ‘You going to be alright, Janice?’ the prison officer asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’

  The door was locked behind me. I stood there, unsure of how to start. Then the girl raised her head. The instant she saw me, she burst out crying.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘Do I really look that bad?’

  Although she was still crying, she started to laugh too. Half a minute later, she was quiet again. But I noticed how that moment formed a tiny connection between us.

  I sat down on the bed. Slowly, carefully, I reached out and stroked her hand.

  ‘Right then,’ I told her. ‘I’m happy to stay with you. We don’t have to talk. We can sit here together, if it helps.’

  She gave a very small nod.

  There were a few times in the night when I could tell that she thought about speaking, but she couldn’t find the words. After we’d been sitting for a while side-by-side, she reached out and gripped my hand. It eased her sense of isolation. Then, as the light of dawn came into the cell, I saw her head was nodding. Very briefly, before the door was opened, she slept. I was proud I’d been her lifeline.

  When women started asking to see me as a listener, I felt a new warmth, like nothing else before in my life. But my role could be gruelling at times. I discovered on the listening course just how great the distress of prisoners can be. So often, they were struggling with desperately complicated lives. Every day seemed to bring some new disaster. Over and over, I heard their shocking histories – childhood abuse, domestic violence, poverty, depression and problems with drink and with drugs. People inside are ten times more likely to kill themselves than those not in custody.

  The worst pain of all was also the most common. Most female inmates are mothers, so as soon as they come into prison, it creates a crisis of separation. Again and again I heard the dreadful despair of women who were parted from their children.

  For months in Morton Hall, I didn’t hear a word from New York. I wanted to phone, but when I thought about how angry Nadia must be, I decided to wait and let her take her time. Eventually, though, my longing to hear her voice became too strong to resist. I saved all my money to buy phone cards, cutting down to just one cigarette a day. It was tough and I badly craved to smoke, but now I could afford to ring her at the weekend, when we were allowed to make our calls.

  I spoke to Emmanuel first. I told him that I’d been sent down and had eight and half years ahead of me. He already knew, of course. As I talked, he listened in silence. I knew he was disgusted with me. For a moment I wondered if he’d even fetch Nadia to the phone.

  ‘She’s not here now. Try her on Sunday,’ he answered at last. He was making it clear that he wouldn’t act as go-between. I would have to find the words to speak to Nadia myself.

  I didn’t dare to plan what I might say – I was too scared. I imagined her disowning me, screaming with anger, telling me she hated me, she’d never ever see me again. It frightened me so badly that I tried to shut those awful pictures from my mind. As I stood there waiting for her, clutching the receiver, my hands were cold and clammy.

  ‘Hey, Mom.’

  I almost sobbed at the sound of her voice.

  ‘Hey, Nads.’

  I talked around in circles, asking her all about her life. She kept saying she was fine. We spoke like well-intentioned strangers. How could I reach this cool, distant woman? But what right did I have to demand that she open up to me? She had every reason to feel the way she did.

  ‘Okay,’ I said at last. ‘My money’s nearly out. I know there’s nothing I can say. Words won’t fix it this time. I know that.’

  There was silence.

  ‘There’s no justification for anything I did. I broke my promise. Just telling you I’m sorry won’t help.’

  Then I heard her start to cry.

  ‘Don’t cry, baby,’ I whispered.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Nadia. ‘I’m angry. I’m so angry with you.’

  I started to cry too.

  ‘Look, baby, can we talk again? Anything you want to say, however you feel.’

  ‘Daddy said to me – whatever you’ve done, you’re still my mother.’

  It was a tiny chink of light. Yet again I was flooded with gratitude. Emmanuel had always stepped up.

  Nadia was all that mattered now. I saved every penny that I could to buy the phone cards that linked us together. Then the prison allowed me to give up my visiting orders in exchange for longer on the phone – and I was fine with that. If we chatted nonsense, I didn’t mind at all. Just the sound of her voice was enough.

  JULY 2004 – HMP SEND, SURREY

  When I got a transfer to a prison nearer London, I was pleased. As soon as I arrived, I applied to continue with my listening.

  The young woman who came into the dining room one lunchtime had messy brown hair. Her face was red and swollen with crying. An officer was walking alongside her, trying to calm her, but the woman kept on pushing her away. She sat down two tables away from me, and buried her face in her hands.

  ‘Legal visit,’ someone muttered behind me. That meant she’d seen her solicitor that day. Something serious had happened.

  For the next few days, I watched her. I learned her name was Claire – she’d only just arrived and been placed in a cell just a few doors down from mine. But she never spoke to anyone, too wretched and distracted to care about whether she made friends. She’d had three legal visits in a very short time. Something was wrong.

  ‘Janice?’ said the prison officer. ‘You’re a listener, aren’t you? Can you see this new girl, Claire?’

  She was in danger of losing her two children. No one in her family could look after them and her release date was a year away at least. Her local authority had started the process to take them into care. I agreed that I would listen, and was taken to her cell.

  Claire was hunched up on the bed with her arms tightly wrapped around her chest. Her cheeks were chapped and peeling from the constant fall of tears. Her eyes were so puffed-up that I could barely tell their colour. As I stood there in the doorway, I wasn’t sure what I could do. Could I help a person in such utter desperation?

  Then I remembered the woman up at Morton who didn’t want words, but just for someone to be there. I sat down next to Claire, not at all sure she would accept me. I felt her draw a deep, lurching breath. Very gently and lightly, I stroked her thin shoulder, then her hair.

  ‘Hi, Claire.’

  She raised her head and tried to wipe her wet sticky face with her forearm. Long stretchy strings of bubbling snot dripped on her shirt.

  ‘Claire,’ I said, ‘I’m Janice. I’m happy to just sit here with you, until you want to talk. And it’s fine if you dribble all over my clothes.’

  She burst into giggles. Something funny, even in this dreadful situation, could help us to connect.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘God, sorry. There’s snot everywhere.’ Then her smile crumpled and her face screwed up in pain. ‘Janice
– they’re going to take my kids.’

  Her son Jaden was eighteen months old and Bethany, her daughter, was four. The children were her world. She was sick with fear that she would lose them. As I listened, I remembered when Nadia’s plane was flying to America – how I lay on my bed in Holloway prison, staring at a cold grey patch of sky. As the distance between us grew greater, I’d felt a tearing pain in my belly. As I looked at Claire, I sensed the dangerous abyss of loss and fear that was opening inside her.

  As gently as I could, I tried to get her to talk. But the only comfort that mattered was a promise that her children wouldn’t be taken away. I couldn’t give her that. No one could. That was why she was desperate.

  ‘I can’t live without Jay and Beth,’ she whispered. ‘And I won’t. I really mean it.’

  I told her she could see me any time, or another listener if that was what she wanted. ‘Don’t be shy – just ask,’ I said. ‘It’s really no trouble. It’s what we’re here for.’ I knew how bad it was. I wished that I could offer more than words. Two days later, she would have another legal visit. I was very, very scared that she was going to hear bad news.

  As I left Claire’s cell, Mummy’s face came vividly into my mind, a memory from my childhood that was almost too painful to recall. I sat down on my bed, barely seeing the cell walls around me. I was back in Southall, in my parents’ house. Claire’s agony was dreadfully familiar.

  In 1957, Daddy asked Mummy to marry him. He wanted them to move to a new country to make a new life. It was a huge, exciting adventure. But Mummy had five children already. She had to make a terrible decision. She asked her friends what she should do, and they all told her the same – that she should leave her children behind. Everyone believed at the time that it was better for them to stay at home with relatives than move around the world. Lots of families were split, with children left behind on the islands and others born in England. Terry and I were those new children for a new English life.