Guilty

by Jane Bidder

  ‘Can you bring a postal order for ten pounds?’ Simon had asked on the phone. ‘We’re allowed ten pounds a week – but not in cash – and out of that I need to buy phone credit and snacks.’

  ‘I’ll get you a phone card,’ she had said but apparently that wasn’t permitted. You were given a pin number apparently to which credit was added. You asked for certain phone numbers to be put on it but they all had to be checked first.

  ‘Shall I bring in some clothes?’ she asked. But apparently that wasn’t allowed either. They had to be ordered from approved prison catalogues and even then there was a limit. Only five pairs of underpants. Five pairs of socks. Five T-shirts, although no offending slogans. No all-black outfits. No sweat shirts with hoods.

  Any other necessary items like disposable razors had to be bought through the canteen which was a shop and not a café. It all seemed so weird.

  So many dos. So many don’ts. Her mind did a mental checklist of the form she’d been sent and the instructions. Park at the Visitors’ Car Park. Bring ID in the form of a passport or driving licence. Leave your mobile and other personal information in the car. Anyone found passing drugs or alcohol or anything which is forbidden, will be liable to prosecution. Do not bring in chewing gum; Sellotape; sugar; hair pins; etc., etc.

  Why not sugar, she had asked on the phone.

  ‘They can make hooch out of it. It’s an alcoholic drink.’

  ‘And Sellotape?’

  ‘Gagging someone.’

  She’d never have thought of that! The list sifted in and out of her head as she took a left down another country road, according to the directions on the net. Claire sounded the horn as she went round the bend and then another, unnecessarily. There it was! A stark black-and-white sign informing her that she had arrived at HMP Holdfast. A grey crop of buildings lay before her with narrow windows and dirty brick. In front was a barrier with a man standing by it in black uniform and silver chain round his waist, and a small black pouch on the belt.

  ‘ID,’ he said without a ‘please’.

  Shaking, feeling as though she had done something wrong, she handed over her passport. Checking it, his gaze flicked from her face to the picture, taken just before Charlie’s infidelity had come to light. Her forehead looked smooth. Her eyes trusting. Her gaze straight. A different, younger Claire, unaware of what lay ahead. She wanted to warn her.

  ‘Straight through.’ He barked rather than spoke. ‘Park on the right. Leave your valuables and mobile in the car but take your passport in with you.’

  By now, the patter felt like a nursery rhyme. As she parked the car, another one was stopping next to hers. It was an old Capri which had several dents in the side. Four, no five, people spilled out of it. They seemed like a family going on an outing judging by their easy banter and the casual way in which the women hoisted up their handbags on their shoulders and puffed out their chests which left little to the imagination in those low cut T-shirts. One caught her eye and, embarrassed, she looked away. Then, not wanting to seem unfriendly, she heard herself asking if they knew where to go next even though there was a sign just behind her.

  ‘The Visitors’ Centre.’ One of the women jerked her head towards a high wire fence on the other side of the car park. ‘Get your hands off him, Sheryl.’

  It took Claire a minute to realise the woman was addressing a younger girl in the group who was cuddling up to a boy who looked as though he should have been at school.

  ‘Yer first time here, is it?’ The woman turned her attention back to her. Claire nodded. ‘Follow us then. Sheryl, I’m bleeding warning you! Any more hanky-panky and you won’t be seeing your dad. ’Sides, these cameras will get you. Get an eyeful of that lot!’

  Claire looked up at a corner of the fence and saw the CCTV cameras. They made her feel as though she had something to hide.

  ‘Yer insurance up to date and yer MOT and bleeding tax?’

  She nodded, puzzled.

  ‘Good, ʼcos those cameras will be checking you right now. Mark my words. This way.’

  They made their way, the women clip-clopping across the gravel in their heels. Claire couldn’t help wondering what Rosemarie would make of it. She was also glad that she had turned down Ben’s offer to go with her. This wasn’t the place for an impressionable teenager.

  They stood at the wire gate, waiting to be let in. Ahead was a queue and she could see an older couple looking as confused as she felt, proffering their passport for another check. Her turn now! It felt as it did when she’d visited her sister in Vietnam and the immigration officer had been so abrupt. Then another queue in a smaller room which had notices on the walls warning her once more that anyone found carrying drugs would be prosecuted.

  ‘Yer haven’t got any, love, have yer?’ whispered the car park woman behind her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. ʼCos the dogs will get yer even if it’s in yer mouth.’

  ‘In your mouth?’

  ‘When yer kiss yer man.’ She spoke as though Claire was being dim. ‘It’s a way of getting the stuff over. Well, one of them. The other’s a bit painful!’

  She laughed; a loud raucous laugh revealing gold fillings that sent shivers down her arm. “You know – up your backside.”

  How horrible.

  ‘Next,’ snapped another officer. This one was a woman who had blonde hair like Claire’s and the same length. She smiled, wanting to say ‘I’m not with this group behind,’ but already she was being gestured forwards.

  ‘OK. You can move through to the next section now.’

  Her heart was thumping. Another corridor. A right and then a left. Through a door and into a room that reminded her of a long-ago school gym on exam days, containing rows of desks, except that this one had prison officers lining the walls.

  And there in the second row at the back, she saw a man, sitting upright on his chair, a haunted, hunted expression on his unshaved face.

  Simon? Simon?

  Chapter Eight

  His first thought was ‘Thank God she’s here’. His second was that he shouldn’t have asked her to come. Claire’s stricken face told him that – the way she looked around her with that scared look, searching for him amongst the tables of huge men, sporting tattoos down their arms and shouting in rough voices.

  ‘Claire,’ he wanted to call out but they weren’t meant to do that. It was one of the many rules that had been given to them in clipped official tones in pre-visit instructions.

  Then her eyes fell on him. ‘Simon!’ She brushed his cheek and as he breathed in her fragrance, he wished he’d been able to shave but the canteen had run out of disposable razors. ‘They wouldn’t let me bring a razor in,’ she said incredulously. ‘I explained you wouldn’t use it for anything else but they wouldn’t believe me.’

  Of course they wouldn’t! ‘Thanks for trying.’ Already his speech sounded stilted. He wanted to say how much he missed her and how awful it was in this place, like a treacle nightmare that he couldn’t step out of because everything – the rules, the voices, the craziness of it all – had wrapped itself round him like some kind of evil cocoon.

  But if he did, she would worry even more.

  ‘What’s it like?’ she asked softly.

  He hesitated, wanting to tell her the truth about being locked up all day with Aaron, a West Indian youth who smoked even though he wasn’t meant to and waved filthy pictures in front of him of women in poses and situations that made his stomach heave and who insisted on calling him Si to rhyme with sigh.

  ‘I’m getting through,’ he said laconically.

  ‘Do you have a room of your own?’

  He wanted to laugh; she made it sound like a hotel. ‘I have to share with someone.’

  ‘And is he all right?’

  He nodded, not trusting himself to say more.

  ‘Do you have to share a loo?’

  ‘With him and eight others,’ he said with an edge of a laugh. ‘Probably best not to ask too much about the s
anitary side.’ Then a thought came to him. ‘Do I smell?’

  She shook her head and he realised that he probably did. The canteen had been out of deodorant as well although that was expected in next week. ‘Did you bring the flip-flops?’

  ‘Yes. But I could only get pink.’

  Pink? They’d crucify him. He could hear the jaunts now. Gayboy. Nance. Ponce. The bullying in this place made his old school look like a kindergarten.

  Claire frowned slightly in that way she did when she didn’t understand something. ‘Why do you need them? It’s not really the weather now, is it?’

  She was so sweetly naive. Then again, he would have been puzzled before coming in here. ‘They’re to protect my feet in the shower. Sometimes people leave unpleasant things there like razor blades or … or other stuff. You can get hepatitis if you’re not careful.’

  Her appalled face showed him he shouldn’t have said that. He looked away, letting the chorus wave from the tables on either side fill in the silence of the gap.

  ‘I keep hearing Joanna’s laugh in my head,’ he said suddenly. Shit. He hadn’t meant that to come out. Now her eyes were filling with tears.

  ‘It’s so awful, isn’t it?’ Her warm hand pressed his. ‘I still can’t believe it. I sent Hugh a note but he didn’t reply.’

  ‘Is he still ringing you?’

  ‘No.’

  The noise around them grew. The couple at the table next to them were clearly having a disagreement and it was hard to hear what she was saying now.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  She leaned forward and he could see the dip between her breasts. Why hadn’t she worn something more suitable? The thought of other men looking, made him clench his fists under the wobbly plastic table. ‘Patrick says you might get a suspended sentence. Then we can get you out of this place.’

  The kid was crazy. Simon knew enough about this to understand the score. ‘Don’t get too hopeful, Claire. I might have to go down for a bit.’

  ‘Go down?’

  He’d forgotten that unlike him, she wasn’t yet versed in prison jargon. ‘Stay inside. Maybe six months or with any luck, three.’

  Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘Don’t talk like that. Be positive. You’ve got to be.’

  That’s all very well, he wanted to say, but you’re not in here.

  ‘What do you do all day?’

  ‘We don’t sew mail bags if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’ Her eyes looked hurt. ‘I just want you to confide in me. Tell me how you’re really feeling.’

  ‘I have.’ He couldn’t help snapping slightly. ‘It’s bloody awful in here.’

  ‘I know.’ Her hand squeezed his again. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He tried again. ‘I read a lot – there’s a woman who comes round with books. And we’re allowed out for an hour a day to walk around a yard.’

  ‘What’s the food like?’

  ‘I can’t eat meat any more.’

  ‘Why?’

  How could he tell her that his mental picture of Joanna on the mortuary slab had made him feel sick when they’d produced sloppy stew that lunchtime in the prison dining room.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘TIME!’ roared one of the prison officers standing in the centre.

  She leaned across to kiss him but the officer at their side stepped in. ‘Sorry, madam. No physical contact.’

  Claire stood up. One of the men at the side table glanced at her breasts in undisguised admiration and Simon wanted to tell him to fuck off. To bloody well mind his own business.

  ‘I’ll come again as soon as they let me. And I’ll write. Be strong, darling. I love you.’

  Then she was gone, disappearing in a group of women with tanned legs and harsh voices, leaving him in a room of disappointed men with plastic tables and chairs and stained virgin blue carpet tiles.

  Simon smashed his fist on the table in anger. ‘You should have told her,’ he said out loud, furious with himself for having chickened out. ‘You should have bloody told her.’

  Bad news, said Patrick during one of his phone calls. (The prison allowed you to take ‘Legal’ calls as they were known, but not calls from family.) A minister’s daughter had been caught using a mobile phone and caused a crash. No serious casualties but she’d been sent to prison for nine months. It could set a precedent.

  He didn’t tell Claire any of this. No point in making her feel worse beforehand. Not long to go now. He tried not to count the days but it was impossible not to. And then one day, he woke from a dream in which Joanna with her lovely translucent skin and blonde hair, coiled up in a loose knot, was shaking him by the shoulders. ‘Wake up,’ she was singing. ‘It’s Trial Day!’

  Simon sat bolt upright. ‘Did you hear that?’ he tried to say to Aaron but nothing came out. He padded across the cold lino floor and put his hand out, hesitating. The only things he could see above the cover were Aaron’s dreadlocks and he didn’t want to touch them.

  Suddenly the dreadlocks stirred. ‘Wassup, Si? Can’t yer see I’m trying to kip?’

  Simon was kneeling by his side now. ‘Did you hear something? Did you hear a woman’s voice just now?’

  There was a low throaty laugh. ‘You’ve been dreaming, Si! Sounds like a good one if a woman was there. If I was you, I’d go back to it.’ His right hand came out from under the thin grey blanket, waving something. ‘Want a dirty magazine to help?’

  Until now, Simon had thought the waiting was the worst. But that was nothing compared with getting into a white van with blacked out windows – without the illegal gap to see out of this time – and being chained to a police officer as if he might run off, given half the chance.

  Then there were the photographers. He hadn’t expected any of this. ‘Thank you very much,’ tinkled Joanna. ‘ I told you. I used to be a dancer. People remember me and besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hugh has alerted the press.’

  He tried to put his jacket over his head to shut out the cameras and block Joanna’s voice. ‘This way, please, sir.’

  He was getting used to the sarcasm now. Simon glanced round the court room. It was like so many that he had been in before, its heavy oak panelling, bland grey walls, and benches resembled a low-key church.

  Until they led him into the dock, he could almost kid himself that he was here to defend someone else instead of speaking out for himself. But now, here he was, behind this huge oak counter, surrounded on all four sides by a rim of wood that made him feel he was in an open coffin. Once, as a law student, he and Alex had stepped inside the dock to know how it felt. It hadn’t been like this.

  He hadn’t expected so many people to be there either. Rosemarie and Alex were up in the gallery along with some people he recognised from the village. No one nodded.

  Simon’s knees weakened as he searched the court for Claire. There she was, smiling faintly at him. Her lips moved as though she was saying something. ‘I love you.’ At least, that’s what he thought she was saying.

  Suddenly, the whole thing seemed ridiculous. He had spent his life defending people who were, for the most part, probably guilty. But he had known the tricks to get them off. It had been a game that he had to win in order to prove he was good at his job.

  He could have defended himself; used those same tricks to save his own skin. But Joanna’s question during the dinner party kept coming back to him. How did he feel about defending people who had done something bad? He had given her some waffle about evidence being interpreted in different ways but now he could see how shallow that had been. He had been responsible for the death of a wife and a stepmother. He had to pay. It was only right.

  ‘Simon James Mills. You are being tried on the charge of death by dangerous driving. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?’

  He tried to speak but the words stuck in his mouth. Besides, he couldn’t hear himself think. Joanna’s voice in his head was too loud. ‘ Go on,’ it seemed to tinkle. ‘ Say yo
u weren’t guilty! Pretend you weren’t responsible. Pretend you didn’t have an extra helping of syllabub containing excess rum or that you didn’t pick up the phone. Then try to live with yourself .’

  ‘Not Guilty.’

  Joanna snorted. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Simon. Thought you were made of stronger stuff.’

  He was. He was. But now it would have been too awkward to say anything because the jury were being sworn in.

  The young woman barrister was fluffing. Her sentences were rushed and her manner flustered. Simon had told Patrick to engage a QC of whom he thought highly but the chap was already on another case. Patrick had sworn this woman was good but she wasn’t. Just look at her!

  Her defence, punctuated by ums and ers and constant referrals to papers which she clearly hadn’t read properly, sounded like a school play accompanied by a tinkling laughter in his head which simply wouldn’t go away so that he caught only snatches of what was going on.

  ‘Mr Hugh Goodman-Brown, wife of the deceased, interfered with Mr Mills’ driving … hand on the wheel … The defendant knows he should not have picked up his mobile phone but there are extenuating circumstances … difficult relationship with his stepson … argument before the dinner party … concern that the boy was in trouble … Good man of impeccable conduct … clean driving licence to date …

  Simon couldn’t stop himself glancing over the public gallery. Ben! He’d told Claire not to bring him but at the same time, been unable to explain that Patrick wanted to use the kid as part of the defence.

  Then he noticed that one of the women jurors – a short plump woman in an electric blue suit and a severe fringe – was frowning at him. The man on her right had nodded off. The youth next to him was staring straight ahead as though he wasn’t here.