by Jane Bidder
She spoke impassively as though describing an event which had nothing to do with her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ breathed Claire. Ben’s face, she noticed, had gone taut and white. Don’t say anything about Simon, she breathed.
‘Was the driver on his mobile phone?’ asked Ben.
‘Goodness me.’ Mrs Johnson laughed shortly. ‘They didn’t have them in those days. Right. Now who’s for tea? I know you said you’d bought something but I’ve made a lovely shepherd’s pie and it’s too big just for me.’
At school earlier, Ben had heard the whispers before he saw the faces. That’s the kid whose dad killed someone … Poppy’s mum died ʼcos of that boy’s stepdad … someone said they were in the car …
Then came the outright hostility. You can’t play in our team. You’re scum. My dad says yours has got blood on his hands. You can’t sit here. This place is taken.
The one good thing was that Poppy wasn’t at school. Maybe she’d never come back. In some ways, that would be easier.
Tell the school secretary if you’re bullied, Mum had said. She had no idea. No idea at all.
Chapter Fifteen
By now, Simon was beginning to understand the pattern of the day. Up at 6.50 a.m. to get into the shower room first. Roll-call at 7.45 a.m. Work at 8.30 a.m. Lunch at 11.45. So early! Back to work at 2 p.m. ‘Dinner’ at 4.45 p.m. when the rest of the world was still in the office. Evenings spent reading in his room or trying to phone Claire. When he couldn’t get through – either because her answerphone was on or because the queue was too long before roll-call – he slammed his fist against the wall. When he did, their conversation was low and desperate with the same questions and the same answers.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t believe her.
‘Do you still love me?’
‘Of course.’
He had to believe that one or he might as well give up.
Then he’d make his way reluctantly back to G Hut where men sat outside or in their rooms, the doors open, playing cards, listening to music, having a smoke and talking, sometimes loudly and sometimes in low hushed tones as though planning something.
Since the incident in the Stores with the man in the Union Jack boxers, Simon had been nervous of bumping into him again alone. Initially he even considered avoiding the dining room but the waistband round his regulation Robin Hood green tracksuit bottoms was beginning to slacken. He had to eat, didn’t he? Besides, what could this thug do in a public area?
A few days later, Simon went into lunch to find Union Jack man sitting at one of the tables near the entrance. His eyes locked with Simon’s. Forcing himself to look back, he made a Don’t mess with me either look. Then he proceeded to help himself to squishy potatoes in a pool of oil, hoping no one else noticed his hands were shaking.
‘Heard you had a bit of a barney with that one,’ said a thin chap at the table where he sat down. ‘Best keep your distance. He was in Wandsworth with that bloke whatshisname, who did that big Bond Street raid in 2000. Only got another four months to go and he’s been telling everyone that if they don’t do what he wants, he’ll be waiting for them when they’re out.’
Simon felt a nasty shiver run down his spine.
‘He’ll be wanting those trainers when he comes back tomorrow,’ added another man. ‘If I were you, mate. I’d give them to him on the quiet. It’s not worth the aggro.’
Simon carefully prodded some small peas with his fork. ‘Someone needs to make a stand,’ he said carefully. ‘I heard him talking on a mobile in the loo this morning.’
‘For God’s sake,’ hissed the man. ‘Do you want to get us all shipped out? There’s some stuff in the place which you don’t talk about. Get it?’
‘Posh darkie,’ sniffed a thin, mean-looking man as he watched Simon dab his mouth with a paper napkin.
Simon found himself reddening, just as he had during his early days at school when he was still learning to harden himself towards racist comments which would never be tolerated nowadays. In prison, however, anything went. ‘Bloody nigger,’ was another comment he’d received the previous day when he’d spent too long in the shower. ‘Need to get all the black stuff off, do you?’
It had been on the tip of his tongue to point out that actually, he was of Indian heritage. Then he remembered his father’s advice when he’d gone back after his first term at school. ‘Don’t let them get to you. Rise above it.
Still, it wasn’t easy, especially as he was far better educated than nearly everyone else around him. Simon began to shake as the horror mounted inside his head. What kind of place had he got himself into?
He spent the rest of the day finishing off at Stores and then taking his ‘dinner’ back into his cell with him. You could do that when it was a sandwich day like it was today. Afterwards, partly to get out of the pad which was already rocking with Bob Marley not to mention fumes from a cigarette which was definitely not allowed, he went for a walk round the camp.
Almost immediately, he passed the chapel, another Portakabin, but this time painted in white with amateurish sunflowers. The Portakabin next to that was the music room, from which came the sound of someone on a keyboard and a guitar. Simon was reminded of a critical article he’d once read in the Telegraph about prisoners being allowed to pursue interests like music and art. Only now could he see that this was surely beneficial. What would the public have them do? Sew mailbags?
If only the library was open but someone said the librarian was away at the moment and besides, it was only open part-time anyway. ‘Cuts,’ his informer had added, ominously. The man, a tall, youngish, dark-haired chap who had an intelligent air, was known round the camp as Mr I Didn’t Do It. Apparently when the library was open, he spent all his time there going through the legal shelf to prove his innocence in case he was lucky enough to be granted an appeal.
After that was another Portakabin bearing a sign asking if he could be a Listener. He read it curiously.
Are you good at listening to other people’s problems?
Could you help someone see something in a different way?
If so, you might be right for our Listening Team. See the centre for details.
The centre was where they had to queue up from the outside – only the staff were allowed inside – and then speak to someone through a window above. A Listener, he mused. Rather like the Samaritans perhaps. Simon, who had been a Nightliner at university, quite liked the idea of that. Maybe he would follow that one up.
‘I’d have thought you could have done with someone to listen to YOU,’ cackled Joanna unexpectedly.
‘Fuck off,’ he said out loud. ‘Just fuck off and leave me alone, can you?’
Her voice unnerved him as he headed back now towards his hut in G block. The only phone that was working had a long queue outside so maybe he’d come back when it had cleared. There was nothing worse than having everyone listen into your conversation. On the other hand, he didn’t have long. At 9 o’clock, their doors were locked and that was it until the keys jangled outside the following morning at 7 a.m.
This was something else he was still getting his head round. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was locked in all night with a Bob Marley maniac, he could almost kid himself that he could walk out of this place any time he wanted.
Instinctively, he glanced up at the tall wall and the barbed wire above it that separated the camp from the B cat. prison next door and shivered. It was then that he heard the tannoy shouting for him. ‘Mills. Number A1112CB. To your pad immediately.’
At the same time, he could hear urgent voices rising from his cell. What was up? Moving past the other men who were congregating in the corridor and looking at him, he felt a surge of apprehension. Oh God. His mattress was on the floor. A magazine lay on his bed; revealing a picture of a woman smiling provocatively; her breasts exposed and legs parted. There was a staple through her red silk crutch. It was the porn magazine that his cell-
mate had been pleasuring himself with last night.
‘Mills,’ repeated the officer, a look of disgust on her face. ‘Is this yours?’
‘Of course it’s not.’ He felt a shudder of revulsion. ‘I don’t look at that sort of thing.’
‘Then why’s it got your name on it?’ demanded the officer.
Impossible.
‘It’s your handwriting.’ The officer looked at him in a way that suggested he had something dirty on his face. ‘We’ve checked.’
That was ridiculous. He picked it up, not wanting to touch it but needing to scrutinise the name on the front more carefully. It was true. It looked exactly like his signature – the S shaped in that distinctive way and the M blending into the first name in a manner he had cultivated years ago when creating a unique signature had seemed so important.
‘It looks like mine but it’s not.’ He went red as he said it, feeling guilty even though he wasn’t.
There was a snort from his pad mate. ‘That’s what they all say.’
The prison officer was already filling in a form. ‘You could get shipped out for this, you know.’
Simon felt a sickening lurch. Shipped out would mean being moved to a prison that wasn’t open where he couldn’t move around freely in the open air. ‘But it wasn’t me. I’m telling you. I’ve been set up.’
The officer had snapped his book shut. ‘Let’s see what the duty guv has to say to that, shall we?’
Forget the duty guv. What about Claire? Supposing she thought he’d been looking at that stuff. Simon wanted to be sick; wanted to go into the bathroom and throw up all over the floor but instead, he waited until the prison officer had left.
‘What are you in for?’ he asked his cell-mate in a dangerously low tone.
‘What business is it of yours?’ Kevin scowled back. It wasn’t considered ‘good form’ in the prison to ask someone what they were in for.
Simon took hold of the man’s collar and pulled it towards him, hardly knowing what he was doing. ‘I said what are you in for?’ He became aware that a silent group was gathering at the door but he didn’t care. Let them call the officer if they wanted. It might bring out the truth.
‘Fraud,’ croaked the man.
He pulled his collar tighter. ‘What kind of fraud?’
‘I got money … from someone’s building society account. Stop. You’re hurting me.’
Simon gave his collar another wrench. ‘How did you do it?’
The man’s face was getting redder and he was gasping now for air. ‘I forged someone’s signature.’
‘Exactly! Just like you forged mine. Right?’
‘Prove it!’ The man’s eyes were black and beady and he was screwing up his mouth. Then before Simon realised what was happening, he felt something wet fly into his eye. The man had spat at him. In horror, he released the collar.
‘Prove it,’ repeated the little man. ‘If you hadn’t made such a fuss about my music, I wouldn’t have done it. But you’re getting on my nerves, Mills, and now they’ll have to move you. Just you wait and see. It’s how this place works. ’Sides, a little bird told me that you’d killed someone. That’s a lot worse than fraud in my book.’
‘He has a point, Simon,’ tinkled Joanna. ‘ Don’t you think? Maybe you’d better not ring Claire tonight after all. I’ve got a funny feeling that she might not understand. ’
At roll-call the next morning, Simon was informed that he had to report to the duty governor on the Friday. That was two whole days away. Two days in which he needed to persuade that horrible little cell-mate of his to come clean about his forgery. In the meantime, the little piece of scum had played his music until 5 a.m. which meant he was almost comatose from lack of sleep.
‘Little piece of scum?’ repeated Joanna. ‘Goodness. You are becoming one of them, aren’t you?’
Thank God he had the gym to help him shut out her voice. Most of the men lived for their twice-weekly half hour slots. They sweated and groaned over huge machines as though to prove how tough they were. But as he went in, thinking how different this place was from the smart gym that he and Claire belonged to at home, he spotted him.
Mr Union Jack Boxers. Sitting on the bench, about to lift up a pair of dumbbells on either side. For an instant, Simon considered simply walking back out but the man had seen him. His eyes fixed on him as he raised the dumbbells revealing a pair of shimmering biceps. ‘Got my trainers ready, have you, Mills?
He spoke as though it was no effort at all even though he was holding these massive weights in his hands. ’You’d better. Hear you’re already in trouble over a magazine. Pity if it happened again, wouldn’t it?’
Suddenly Simon realised what had happened. It wasn’t the music which had made his cell-mate Kevin plant the porn under Simon’s mattress. It was Union Jack who had somehow forced him to do it, probably through intimidation.
He moved towards him but before he could get there, there was a flash of black jogging bottoms and a gold chain. ‘What about the money you owe me for that fucking phone, Macdonald,’ shouted a voice.
Before he could take in what was happening, Simon heard a shout of pain. Appalled, he watched as the man in black joggers snatched the dumb-bells out of Union Jack’s hands and brought them down on the man’s face. Within seconds, it resembled a bloody pulp, red rivulets dripping down onto the floor. Someone else screamed and then there was the sound of a loud bell overhead. Within seconds, three officers came running in but by then the man in black joggers had melted away, leaving a crowd of them, including Simon, on the fringes.
‘What happened?’ yelled one of the officers as another knelt down next to Union Jack, whose head was rolling in a strange way at the side.
‘Dunno,’ mumbled the chap next to him.
‘Someone must have seen something,’ demanded the officer, glaring at Simon.
He tried to speak but his lie came out cracked and dry. ‘I was at the other end of the gym. I don’t know.’
‘Out, all of you.’
They filed out sheepishly leaving the officers to deal with Macdonald.
‘Do you think he’s dead?’ Simon whispered to the tall, pale youth he’d spotted earlier.
‘If he isn’t, he ain’t going to look very pretty.’
Someone else laughed. It was then he felt the nudge in his ribs. ‘Thanks.’ It was the man in black joggers and a gold chain. ‘I won’t forget it.’
No, Simon wanted to shout. Do forget it. I shouldn’t have lied. I should have told them the truth. But somehow he found himself nodding curtly and walking back to Bob Marley and G hut.
The following day, he was summoned by the tannoy voice to the Centre where he was crisply informed that he was no longer required to visit the duty governor. No explanation was given. However, when he returned to G hut to change for work at Stores, he found his cell-mate gone.
‘Shipped out for collaboration,’ said a voice at the door. It was the man in the black joggers and gold chain. ‘Said I’d see you all right, didn’t I?’ He clapped Simon on the back. ‘Got to look after each other in this place. It’s one of the rules.’
Chapter Sixteen
Years ago, before she’d even met Charlie, let alone Simon, Claire had considered teaching after art school. But then she’d got a job in the illustration department of a children’s book publishers and one thing had led to another. When Ben was born, it seemed right to turn freelance.
But now, faced with a classroom of young eager children, each one with their hands up and desperate to get their warm little squat hands on the palettes of poster paints, she felt an unexpected buzz!
‘Mrs Mills, Mrs Mills! Can I go first? Can I go first?’
‘Mrs Mills? Are we going to eat those carrot heads?’
Yes, the little girl with the Chinese eyes in the front row could go first and no they weren’t going to eat those carrot heads! They were going to use them to print funny shapes all over the large piece of paper on the wall. It was going to b
e a wall hanging and maybe, later, they might make a shell painting using the shells she’d collected on the beach.
By the end of the forty-minute session, she realised she hadn’t thought of Simon once. It almost felt as though she’d been unfaithful.
‘Been to see your dad in prison?’
‘What’s it like in your old man’s cell?’
The taunts at school were endless.
He’s not my father, Ben wanted to shout but instead, he ignored them. Even his friends kept their distance, hanging back as though he was tainted.
But Poppy still wasn’t there. Someone said she’d left. Someone else said she’d died along with her stepmother although he knew this bit wasn’t true.
He simply wanted to talk to her. She was the only person who might be able to stop her dad from upsetting Mum. Then Poppy’s dad would stop putting bricks through their window. He and Mum could go back to being on their own again without Simon and maybe, just maybe, Dad would come back.
After afternoon register, he slipped out, walking down the drive and waiting for someone to stop him. But no one did. Even if they rang home, no one would answer because Mum was at work.
‘Return to Exeter please,’ he said to the bus driver and then took his seat right at the very back. The old woman next to him glanced suspiciously at his school uniform.
The bus lurched sending him sideways into the old woman and she glanced at him as though it was his fault. That’s what Mum thought even though she didn’t say so. If he hadn’t called Simon to ask for a lift home, The Accident would never have happened and then they could all be at home still and he might have been able to have asked Poppy out. It was so unfair! Of all the girls in school, she was the only one he fancied. So why did Simon have to go and fucking kill her stepmother?
Poppy lived in a village that only had a bus twice a day. Ben hadn’t realised this until he asked two different people at the bus station. The first person was more interested in answering travel questions from a woman behind him in the queue and the second gave him the information in a voice that sounded as though he should have known the answer for himself.
