by Adele Parks
‘Don’t you see how disruptive this will be for her? We have to take things slowly. We have to put her first.’
He smiles. ‘The shared custody thing, that’s happening, Daisy. Understood?’
He puts a piece of meat in his mouth and starts to chew. I push my plate away and stare at the serrated steak knife. I’ve never been a violent person, but I want to plunge it in his heart. The problem is, I’d have to find it.
39
Chapter 39, Simon
Saturday, 6th July 2019
Simon sat in the visitors’ room, uncertain whether she would show up. He couldn’t believe it, after all this time. It was a hard-hitting fact that he had finally been granted on-licence release – and with continued good behaviour he would be out and on the other side within as little as a week or so – before Daisy had finally agreed to come and see him. But he refused to sulk. He wasn’t going to resent or regret. That was no way forward. He had to see the timing as an opportunity, a good thing. This was better than him just turning up at her house. They could have the difficult conversations in here, where there were parameters. Here, things could be controlled. It would give him time to show her he’d changed. Give her time to believe it. The conversations ahead of them would inevitably be painful. He realised he had a lot to explain, she had a lot to forgive. But it was the other way round too. She just didn’t know what he knew about her. What he was prepared to forgive. If they were to have a future together, he had to talk to her about Millie’s parentage. He’d thought about it for hours and hours. The possibility of pushing the whole business under the carpet was not an option for him. The secret would be like a bad stench that would ultimately permeate their relationship. He had to have it out with her. And then they could move onwards. He hoped so, but did they have it in them? Could they leave their misery and wrongdoings in this place?
Go forward, rehabilitated? Restored?
He carefully watched the door as the visitors trailed in. Mostly women, the men visiting their sons, brothers or friends were in the minority. The world’s caring, consoling, calming was usually left to women. How did the visitors prepare to enter this block of despair and disgrace, he wondered? He noted that some scanned the room, searching out their men. These women displayed a myriad of emotion: frustrated, hopeful, anxious, exhausted. Others arrived and behaved like well-trained animals or robots, blank-faced, unwilling or unable to betray any emotion, they mechanically moved towards set tables. They knew that their men would be sat at the same table every week, because he was comfortable with a routine or maybe he was staking out ownership, preferring to take the table under the window to benefit most from the natural light, or the one near the kids’ play corner so his offspring could be occupied. Any sort of advantage mattered here. Even after all this time, Simon still didn’t have a regular table. He was not high up enough on the prison pecking order to be able to mark out any sort of territory. He sat wherever was left and tried not to look like a man who had been beaten up by life.
Well before they reached the main prison, the security checks began for these women. There were forms to be filled in, ID to be handed over, scans, searches, questions, cameras. Once inside they endured a series of holding rooms and queues. Wives, mothers, girlfriends and children patiently queued, enduring constant monitoring and suspicion. He knew this because Connie had told him. She said that the women behaved differently from the way they might have in any other queue; they did not chat, swap pleasantries, pass the time of day. They kept their heads down, avoided conversation. The women with kids hissed and snapped their children into obedience.
They were all ashamed. They’d rather be anywhere else.
Before they were allowed in here the visitors had to remove shoes and belts, put all their belongings through an X-ray machine. Exactly like they were going on holiday, not dissimilar to visiting the top of the Shard, and yet so very far from embarking on a treat. They walked through more metal detectors and then were subjected to a body search. Pretty thorough ones: the lining of clothes, the soles of feet and the inside of mouths were all checked. The frisking was done by a woman, at least.
Then they would put their shoes back on and pass from the reception area, through a corridor and towards another locked door. Passing through this door involved another wait, as it was only unlocked by staff in the control room after they’d re-checked visitors’ identity documents. No two doors in the unit were allowed to be opened at the same time. That was the anthem of visiting time: locks scraping, doors banging, locks scraping, doors banging.
What would Daisy make of it all, he wondered? Had Connie warned her?
Then, she walked in. There she was. Daisy. His wife. Still, after all these years. She glanced about. He forced himself to sit up a little straighter. It was an effort. Physically and mentally. She caught his eye but didn’t smile a greeting. Her hair was shorter, just skimming her shoulders. When he saw her last it had fallen down her back, and she was thinner than he remembered. He imagined she’d be secretly pleased about that, even though the weight loss might have come through suffering, even though he couldn’t say whether it suited her. She looked tired.
He wondered what he looked like to her. He was wearing prison clothes, as was everyone else. An ill-fitting but clean grey tracksuit, that sliced away his identity, that was the point of it. His hair was greasy. He hadn’t been able to get to the showers today. There had been some sort of scuffle in there. Someone ended up in the hospital unit. Two broken ribs and a broken nose. Simon had also lost weight since he’d been inside. Obviously, the food was crap and he couldn’t drink. Maybe he’d arrived carrying a couple more pounds than he should have had, but he knew he’d gone past looking healthy. Now he looked gaunt. Hungry. He didn’t linger in front of a mirror. They weren’t allowed real mirrors in prisons, in case anyone broke one and used a shard as a weapon or a way out, but he knew what he looked like from the metal substitute. His eyes were sunken, missing somewhere in the back of his head. His cheeks were burnt by broken veins, his actions were sluggish, inept. He wondered whether he was frightening to look at. Whether he looked brutal or brutalised.
A week or so. Nearly there. Nearly done.
She pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down, silently. The quietness was notable even though there was a lot of noise around them. Maybe because of that fact. Visiting times could be rowdy. People brought their children. He would never have wanted Millie to see inside this place; not that he was given a choice. Millie. What must she be like now? Connie had brought some photos over the years, he would be able to recognise her in the street if he saw her. But that was not the same as knowing her. He looked at his wife. A furtive glance, then away again. Neither of them could stand prolonged eye contact. He’d been excited to see her, or something close. Now he was terrified. What did she want from him? Why was she suddenly here? So much time had passed. She was at once a stranger and the person he knew better than anyone else in the world. What did that say about his life?
He hadn’t expected the conversation to flow. How could it? After three years of silence and six years before that of Daisy tricking him, deliberately withholding information. What could she say that would throw a rope across that chasm? He thought she might offer him scraps of news, he did not expect a feast. She might tell him about what she had done last week. Whether her pupils were being cooperative, cheerful, determined at the moment. She must be moving towards the end of term now. Would she talk about Millie? The daughter that wasn’t his.
The silence stretched. He didn’t know what to say. Where to start. He didn’t want to talk about his desolation, his sorrow. Suddenly shy, he told himself that how he felt was probably immaterial to her, anyhow. It was indulgent to go there. Talking about his pain was honest, but a downer, and talking about his hopes was a leap. They were long since out of the habit of saying the first thing they thought of. It was easier to avoid anything raw. The thing that sat between them, most defiantly, most dreadfully, was the sense of accusation.
His and hers. Mute but brutal. The silence tormented. His scalp itched with irritation.
When they were first married, Daisy used to tell him practically everything that happened to her when they were out of one another’s sight, she’d recount every thought that had drifted in to her head whilst they were apart. And he would do the same for her. She’d tell him about the wrangles in the staff room, what she’d had for lunch, how long she’d had to wait for the bus home. And he’d tell her what his clients had said about his proposals, that he had trouble working the complicated coffee machine in the boardroom, that there had been traffic on the M25 so he’d listened to the radio to pass the time. In those days, they’d never stopped chatting, they never ran out of things to say. He remembered that they’d wanted to know everything about one another, they’d resented the times they had to be apart, and so they’d tried to play catch up. They’d sometimes be left hoarse or knackered as they’d talked late into the night, early into the morning. Even at the weekends, when they spent every moment together, they still had things to talk about because they’d discuss the TV dramas they were watching, they’d theorise on what might happen next or mercilessly pick apart characters that they didn’t believe in, they’d discuss what they might eat for supper or they’d analyse their friends after seeing them. Who was happy? Who was not. There were never silences.
But then things had changed. Because of his drinking. Because of the shared baby-longing. Because of her infidelity. Just because.
The meetings were making him remember stuff. Live with it. Own it. It was agony because, now he wasn’t drinking, he remembered so much, but he wasn’t sure she did. It seemed she’d forgotten needing and wanting or having a connection.
She’d lied to him. Betrayed him. He had to live with that too. Own that.
‘How’s school?’ he asked. It was somewhere to start. She stared at him, cold, uncooperative.
‘Fine.’ She shrugged her shoulders.
He pushed on, bravely. ‘Are you still at the same place? Newfield Primary.’
‘Yes.’ She sighed.
He wasn’t sure what the sigh meant. He wondered what it was like there for her now. How long had the mothers whispered about him, about her, as they gathered at the school gate? Did some still put a protective arm around their child and usher them away from Daisy as she walked past? Did they judge her for being married to a man who drank so much he’d nearly killed their child? Three years was a long time to many people working in offices – in advertising or TV it would be a lifetime – but Simon knew that school communities were like elephants, they never forgot. Daisy no doubt sill wore Simon’s disgrace. Had the Head of her school gently hinted that it might be better if she considered a fresh start, a new school? He wondered to what extent she had been ostracised. Was she suffering out there? Lonely?
As he was in here.
He hoped not.
The children wouldn’t treat her with any level of suspicion. If they were aware that their parents were gossiping, it wouldn’t matter to them. All the kids cared about was if their teacher was fair, consistent: if she remembered to dish out sweets at Christmas and Creme Eggs at Easter. He recalled her doing that. They’d both made a few last-minute dashes to the supermarket to buy the treats that said end of term.
He watched his wife and wondered about her life. A life he had once shared and now seemed remote to him. She looked sad. Deeply sad. And there was something else. She was alight with something. On fire. Was there nervousness, fear? Yes fear, he recognised it. It was something to do with her eyes darkening a shade. Naturally, she was scared. She was sat in a prison visiting room; he couldn’t expect her to put out bunting. She glanced around the room, perhaps searching for something to talk about. After a while she alighted on a piece of news she was prepared to share. ‘I still visit your mother,’ she stated.
‘Oh, that’s good. Thank you.’ His voice was flat, contradicting the words. He wanted to sound enthusiastic. He wanted to show he cared and was grateful, but he couldn’t summon up the energy. No doubt he sounded as though he didn’t care. Not enough. ‘Does she recognise you?’ There was no hope in his voice.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Right.’
‘She’s quite well, though. Otherwise,’ continued Daisy, with equal dreariness. ‘Considering,’ she added.
Simon felt patches of sweat bloom under his arms. His bones felt too big for his flesh, he felt squashed and tense, his skin was tight and uncomfortable. He imagined he was an explosive device, ticking. He concentrated very hard on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly. Counting in his head. He sighed, dredged up something from somewhere. A respect for their past? A hope for their future? ‘Considering what?’ He asked. ‘Her condition or mine?’
‘It’s not all about you, you know,’ Daisy snapped.
‘I was only trying to make a joke,’ he said defensively.
‘It’s not a laughing matter.’
No. Nowhere near. He knew that. Simon nodded. Chastised. Sad. Hopeless. What could he say that would please her? Nothing. In the meetings, he’d been told to try to communicate. To find words. Not to bottle everything up. That had raised a half-smile. The expression ‘bottle everything up’. Choice words when lecturing to a bunch of alcoholics.
‘I often find myself thinking about our first date,’ he said suddenly. Daisy stared at a spot over his shoulder, but he knew she was listening, even if she didn’t want to be. ‘What was the name of that Italian restaurant we used to go to? The one where all the customers shared bench seats and tables, just mucked in. Do you remember? You could take your own wine and just pay a couple of quid corkage. Was it Luigi’s?’
‘No. Carlo’s,’ she muttered, with obvious reluctance. Her desire to be factually correct temporarily outweighing her fury at him.
‘That’s it.’ He nodded satisfied. Simon knew their first date was at Carlo’s not Luigi’s, he had deliberately made that mistake, so Daisy would engage. He was clever like that. ‘We’d just scoot over, and some stranger would plonk themselves down. Stranger one minute, friend the next, because we always got talking to them, didn’t we?’
‘Often,’ she admitted, because it was true. Simon had been gregarious once and had no problems starting a conversation with anyone.
‘We eat at benches here, in the canteen. There isn’t much swapping of small talk though,’ he informed her. She scowled at him. He wasn’t trying to make her pity him. He was just stating a fact. He saw her face close down. Pain, anger? Something. He shouldn’t have told her that. She wasn’t ready to hear about this place. He thought about Carlo’s instead. A noisy, smoky, over-hot dive. They’d loved it! His heart swelled with longing. A saunter down memory lane was a coping strategy. He didn’t want to be here. Of course not. Who would? She looked away, stared at the plastic table, refusing to go along with him. Unable, or unwilling, to give him what he needed. He carried on regardless.
‘It was a warm night. And afterwards, when we left the restaurant, we walked around the streets. Just wandered, didn’t we?’ The bliss of that. What careless freedom. Wandering. ‘The streets were crammed with tourists and locals, tumbling out of pubs and bars. We walked to a park. Which park was it?’ It was Regent’s and Daisy most likely knew that, but she didn’t reply. ‘There had been some sort of show. The actors were just leaving, still in costume.’ His face, usually so tight and tense, cleared. ‘Shakespeare, right?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’ She knew it was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He was certain she did.
It could have been the two bottles of white wine that they’d drunk, or the surreal situation of walking through a London park inhabited by imps and fairies, but Daisy had, in the past, confirmed that it was the most perfect and promising first date any woman could ever have hoped for. Romance shimmered in the air, like gossamer. Simon had taken off his socks and trainers and dangled his feet in the park fountain, she’d followed suit and joined him. They hadn’t given a th
ought to how clean, or rather dirty, that water was. Daisy had been wearing linen trousers, he was in chinos, they rolled them up. Their thighs were pressed up against one another’s, their bare arms too; hot and sticky. As the crowds had started to thin out, Daisy began to be concerned about when the gates would be locked, whether they’d be trapped in the park all night.
They’d ended up having al fresco sex in, or at least near, the fountain.
Unbelievable. A different life. A different world.
Simon wondered if Daisy was thinking about this too. He hoped so.
‘Do you remember when we would spend ages just kissing?’
‘Don’t.’
‘I’d find a curve or a freckle. It was like a wonderous thing. The most wonderous thing.’
‘Stop it Simon.’
‘I’m trying to say sorry, Daisy.’
‘You can’t. You can’t say sorry for nearly killing a child. For killing our marriage. You don’t get to say sorry because it’s not enough.’
‘I know that. I do know that. But how can I fix this?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe some things are so badly broken that they can never be fixed.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘She was in hospital for weeks. There were complications. She nearly died and she’ll never be a dancer.’
‘She can be something else. Something else great. Kids want to be things at age six that they don’t get to be.’
‘How can you be so callous?’
He had sounded frustrated, indifferent. He wasn’t that, he was lost. He was trying to be hopeful but he didn’t know what she wanted. ‘Why are you here, Daisy?’
40
Chapter 40, Daisy
The silence stretches from his side of the table to mine. It stretches across the years we have been married – the happy and sad ones – smothering them. We used to have so much to say to one another. You do, at the beginning, don’t you?
