Guilty

by Jane Bidder

  ‘Yes we can!’ Ben’s eyes were shining. ‘I emailed Dad and he said he’d pay you more every month for the jabs and the food and that sort of stuff.’

  Mrs Johnson made a slight noise. ‘Very generous of him, I’d say, considering the circumstances.’

  If only she knew!

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Please,’ said Mrs Johnson and Ben together.

  Claire found herself nodding. ‘All right.’ She turned to her landlady. ‘If you’re really sure.’

  ‘My dear, you’d be doing me the most enormous favour. I can’t tell you what it’s meant to me to have you both with me. I feel as though I’m a proper family again. By the way, dear, what is the dog called? Ben didn’t seem to know.’

  Claire felt a crazy urge to laugh out loud. ‘Slasher,’ she said. ‘He’s a springer. I believe they’re rather lively.’

  Mrs Johnson’s face fell but only for a second. ‘Never mind, dear. I’m sure he will be fine. Perhaps we could call him ‘Sher’ for short. It sounds a bit friendlier, don’t you think?’

  She’d tell Simon if he called tonight. Maybe she’d write him a letter as well. If only she could email! When Simon had first gone Inside, she had naively asked for his email address. ‘Taking the mickey, are you?’ the officer had demanded at the other end of the line.

  Talking of emails, she ought to check her inbox in case her agent had left a message. Hugh? Her finger shook on the mouse. What did he want?

  Nervously, she opened the message.

  I know you will be surprised to hear from me but I would like to meet to discuss certain matters. May I suggest a week on Saturday at 11 a.m.? We could meet outside the cathedral .

  Her first reaction was to politely decline. Yet didn’t she owe him? After all, her husband had been responsible for his wife’s death.

  ‘Yes,’ she typed simply. ‘I will be there.’

  Ben waited until his mother went to her room to check her emails before making the call.

  It went through immediately to answerphone.

  ‘Dad, it’s me. I think she’s going to email you to say yes about the dog. Thanks so much. There’s something else. I heard her having a bit of a row with Simon on the phone last night. I think she misses you, Dad. But don’t say I said so, will you?’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Claire wasn’t pleased about the dog! She told him so on the phone, but in the background he could hear Ben getting all excited and calling out that it was the best thing he had ever done and thank you. This made Simon feel good about the boy for the first time in ages. Besides, as Mick, the dog’s owner, had said, it was important for a woman on her own to have a dog. ‘Slasher’s a good judge of character. He’ll get at anyone who threatens your missus. Just make sure he gets lots of walks. Springers need exercise.’

  Since when had he started taking advice from a criminal? Still, it was done now. Mick had arranged for a friend to drop the dog off at Claire’s and apparently even the landlady was besotted. But Claire’s frosty tone made him wonder if he really had done the right thing.

  Slasher’s owner, meanwhile, went round telling everyone what a ‘star’ Simon was. It didn’t do him any favours. ‘Getting all cosy with Mick, I hear,’ said one of the men in the dining room and someone else sniggered. Like many men who had never been in prison before, Simon had initially been scared that someone would make a pass. Wasn’t homosexuality meant to be rampant in prison? But apart from Georgie – who had arrived out of the blue last month from another prison and whose chumminess (‘Hello again, ducks!)’ had made Simon a target for gay jokes – he’d seen little evidence so far.

  Then, two weeks later, came a letter in Internal Mail. His paperwork had been accepted and he could start art classes on Wednesday and Thursday mornings! The rest of the time he’d be working in Kitchens. That meant with luck he’d avoid direct contact with unsavoury characters like the thick-set child molester. But in another way, he balked at the idea of taking on a fresh job.

  Was this, he wondered, how Ben had felt about doing something new at school? Maybe he should have been more supportive of the boy …

  There were two kinds of kitchen duties. One team cooked and washed up for the men in the prison dining room (not to be confused with canteen). And the other cooked for prison staff in the other kitchen.

  Simon had been picked for the latter kitchen. He’d heard enough about it to know what it entailed. You had to be there immediately after roll-call and if anyone slacked, they risked the wrath of Jill, the outside cook in charge, who called them all ‘boyo’. Before he’d gone into prison, Simon would have been amazed to find out that the staff food was cooked by convicts. Supposing they put something in the food? But, from day one, he discovered that as soon as they began to prepare the menu for lunch, you almost forgot you were in a prison environment because you were all under pressure to prepare heaven knows how many pounds of potatoes or carrots.

  It reminded Simon of a summer job he’d had at about Ben’s age when he had been employed in a local wine bar to chop up vegetables for salad. He’d been sacked after a few weeks, he recalled to his shame, because he hadn’t been quick enough. No chance of that now under Jill’s watchful eye.

  ‘Not got those onions sliced yet, boyo?’ she yelled out to Georgie who had been employed in Kitchens for the past month. ‘You’ve got five minutes or I’ll put you on to chicken.’

  ‘C’mon Jill, you know the sight of meat makes me feel sick,’ pouted Georgie whose glossy black hair was tied back in a purple scrunchie.

  ‘Then you’d better get moving, hadn’t you? And take that lipstick off.’

  Georgie tutted. ‘We’ve been through this one before, ducks! The guv’s told you. It’s in the Human Rights. If I was a woman in the full sense of the word, you wouldn’t be able to stop me wearing make-up. And by the way, if you ever want a lesson in make-up techniques, you know where to come to.’

  ‘Cheek of you! Less of the back chat or I’ll get you moved to Sanitary.’

  Simon soon learned that Jill’s bark was worse than her bite. ‘Got a posh one here, haven’t we? Better put you on the front to serve out at dinner time especially if the guv’s got guests. We had a judge here the other year. Did you know that?’

  She went on to name a member of the judiciary who had been given a short sentence for persistent speeding even though he hadn’t actually had an accident. ‘Really charming he was. Even arranged for one of the boys to look round the Lords with one of those visitor passes. Don’t suppose you’ve got connections, have you?’

  Joanna tinkled. ‘Clearly she doesn’t know you’ve been struck off.’

  Not again. He’d thought she’d gone for a bit.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ Jill clucked. ‘Tell you what. I’ll put you on slicing chicken fillets instead.’

  ‘You should have seen me on the slab, Simon,’ purred Joanna in his ear. ‘That stuff reminds me of my old self.’

  There was a loud crash as Simon dropped the metal tray. ‘What did you do that for?’ Jill stared at the chicken bits on the floor incredulously. ‘You just knocked it right off the surface.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Simon felt he was going to be sick. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Blimey, ducks,’ said Georgie, ‘you’re as white as a sheet. You all right?’

  Simon’s face felt hot and he felt small beads of cold sweat trickling down his shoulder blades. ‘Sorry,’ trilled Joanna. ‘ Did I upset you then?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Simon yelled. ‘Just shut up.’

  ‘There’s no need to be like that, duck.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you.’

  Jill was giving him a strange look. ‘Listen, boyo. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’re up against it, I’d send you back to Stores. But it’s all hands on deck this morning so you’d better get cracking. Pick up that chicken now and give them a good rinse.’

  Simon crouched down next to the scattered fillets with traces of blood round the fles
h. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘They remind me of the accident.’

  Suddenly there was someone next to him. Someone who began gingerly picking up the bits. ‘It’s all right, ducks,’ said Georgie’s voice reassuringly. ‘I don’t like it either but we need to help each other in this place.’

  Somehow, Simon got through the rest of that morning. By the time ‘dinner’ came, he was exhausted. The heat of the ovens was overpowering There’d been the effort in getting together the menu, and now he’d been put onto the shift that served the staff.

  It was a strange set-up. Jill perched on a stool behind a cash machine and the food was set up on a heated buffet bar. From 11.45 onwards, staff began to arrive. Simon was behind the buffet bar together with Georgie, charged with dishing out the orders.

  Simon was amazed at how much some of the officers ate. They thought nothing of ordering sausages and mash and then a portion of chips on top. The chicken curry went down well that day but every time he served out a portion, he felt nauseous.

  ‘Mind you,’ confided Joanna, ‘I’ve often dropped something on the floor and then given it to party guests.’

  He ignored her, determined not to make another mistake. ‘Here comes the guv,’ hissed Jill. ‘Act snappy, will you? Looks like he’s brought a guest. ’

  Simon looked curiously. This wasn’t the number one Guv whom he’d once seen about the camp. This one must be one of the others. He was a tall man with a square-shaped head and bright inquisitive eyes that darted everywhere. His guest was a stout man in a pin-striped suit and steel-frame glasses. Shit. It was a solicitor whom he’d dealt with once in London. Bending down, he pretended to do something to the carrots in the tray.

  ‘Two portions of veg, please,’ said the governor eying the chicken. ‘That looks good. Would you recommend it?’

  Simon gave a non-committal grunt. The solicitor whom he’d recognised glanced sharply at him. He had recognised him. Simon was sure of it. As the pair made their way into the dining room, Simon saw the solicitor say something to the governor who then looked back at him.

  ‘Know him, do you, ducks?’

  Simon nodded.

  ‘It happens sometimes. I met an old girlfriend here once. Not nice, is it? But the good news is that it makes you stronger. Honest. Besides, you’ve got your art class to look forward to on Wednesday, haven’t you?’

  The deal was that you were allowed time off from your work party twice a week to do something that was educational. Art fell into this category. Last year, there had been someone who had run writing workshops, apparently, but her contract had expired and there wasn’t a budget to replace her.

  ‘Budget’ was a word that came up frequently. You had to make do with the limited stocks in the kitchen because of the budget. It wasn’t worth complaining about the smallish portions you got to eat yourself in the prison dining room because of the budget. Lots of the men complained they were losing weight although, to Simon’s mind, they could do with it. There were exceptions, clearly, and he’d been particularly struck that week by an older prisoner from Sri Lanka who hobbled around on a stick. He too, he’d told Simon, was going on the art workshop. ‘If we’d been illiterate, we could have gone on to full-time education but there isn’t any point,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘I obtained my degree many years ago.’

  If it hadn’t been against prison custom, Simon would have liked to have asked what he was in for.

  ‘I am looking forward to commencing my art lessons,’ said the older man as they walked to the Portakabin where the lessons were being held.

  ‘So am I.’ Simon thought about telling him that his wife was an artist and then thought better of it. It was best to keep one’s private life as separate as possible; Spencer had taught him that.

  ‘I thought perhaps, they might be cancelled,’ continued the older man. ‘There has been a lot of trouble in the press recently about prisoners enjoying themselves too much.’ He chuckled. ‘These people ought to be here themselves and then they would see it is not easy.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ Simon couldn’t help asking.

  ‘I keep abreast of current affairs. I was a professional, you see.’

  He said this with a degree of pride. ‘Mind me asking what you did?’

  ‘I was an architect.’ The words came out clipped and distinct. ‘Unfortunately, I made a mistake with something without realising, which is why I am here.’

  The sentence came out as though it had been rehearsed.

  ‘It is not easy.’ The old man sighed. ‘Someone of my age should be retired by now. I was just one year off. That is all. Still, I do not have long now. Ah. Here we are.’ He chuckled. ‘I believe the art teacher is very pleasing on the eye.’

  Simon held open the door of the Portakabin. How extraordinary! All around him were canvasses of paintings which were surely good enough to have been entered into the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition – which he always made a point of going to. There was a stunning picture in blue of a lake which had trees brushing the water. Next to it was an outline of a man whose hooked nose and penetrative eyes almost cut through the canvas. Below were the words ‘Self-portrait’.

  ‘I believe the class is through here,’ said his new friend, pointing to another door. They went through. There was a large table in the centre with chairs around it but only four ‘students’. The art teacher’s back was facing towards him and Simon gasped with shock. It was her! The same small frame, the same pre-Raphaelite auburn tresses cut slightly shorter, the violet cardigan she had bought the week before The Accident.

  ‘Claire!’ he gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He ran towards her about to take her in his arms and then stopped. The woman turned. She was like Claire but her nose was more aquiline and her eyes deep-set.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He wanted the ground to open up and suck him in. ‘I thought you were … I thought you were someone else.’

  Flushed with acute embarrassment, he became aware of someone giggling at the table. It happened to me the other day, he wanted to say. I met someone I knew. The governor’s guest was someone I used to work with. So it’s not really that impossible.

  ‘That’s all right.’ Her voice was deeper than Claire’s and he realised that her face was fuller. Even so, there was a remarkable similarity. ‘Coincidences do happen in life. Now why don’t you take a seat and I’ll tell you what we’re going to be doing today. Ever used charcoal before?’

  ‘How did it go, mate?’ asked Spencer when he got back.

  ‘What?’ He pretended to be cool. It was a trait that had been instilled years ago by his father, and then by school. If you admit you really liked something, someone, somewhere, would take it away from you.

  Hadn’t that already happened with Claire? He could tell from her voice on the phone and the lack of visits that she was drawing away from him. The only way he could cope with the pain was to pretend that he was losing interest in her too.

  ‘The art lesson, mate. How did the art lesson go?’

  ‘Oh that.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘OK. At least it was a change. I don’t think I’m going to be much good myself.’

  ‘You never know. Might make your fortune one day. Didn’t you say the missus was an artist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He didn’t want to talk. Instead he needed to sit and think on his own. Caroline-Jane, the art teacher, had unnerved him and not just for her similarities to Claire. What made a woman like her come to a place like this? She went to the Dark Side too; the one where the rapists and murderers were. He couldn’t even think about that.

  ‘Got your Listening stuff tonight, have you?’

  Simon nodded. He’d almost forgotten.

  ‘So you don’t mind if I have a couple of mates back here while you’re out?’

  Nice of him to ask, really. ‘That’s fine.’

  Spencer nodded. ‘Great. See you later, man.’

  He could have done without the Listene
rs hut tonight but he was on duty. Maybe no one would turn up and then he might go to the library if the librarian was back from sick leave. The last one had thrown in the job because of stress. Blast. Someone was coming.

  ‘Oh my God,’ gasped Joanna. ‘It’s the paedo. Rather you than me, darling.’

  Simon stared in horror at the thickset man who lumbered towards him. ‘You the Listening bloke?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I need to talk to someone.’

  Simon felt his mouth go dry with revulsion.

  ‘OK. Sit down.’

  ‘They won’t let me go to my son’s wedding.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And I want to know what I can do about it.’

  The man was glaring at him as though he could bend the rules.

  ‘Have you been through the proper channels?’

  ‘The proper channels? You sound like one of ‘them’, mate. I’ve filled in all the paperwork if that’s what you mean but they still won’t let me go. They say I still pose a risk to the community. What can I do about it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m the right person to talk to about this.’

  ‘But you’re a Listener, aren’t you? I want to tell you what I’ve done to prove I’m not a risk any more. It wasn’t much. I just …’

  ‘No.’ Simon stood up, feeling bile rising up in his stomach. ‘I’m sorry. I need to find someone else for you to talk to. Now if you don’t mind, I have to go.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Claire was outside the cathedral early, not wanting Hugh to be first. This way, she could compose herself before his arrival.

  She hadn’t told Simon about Hugh’s email. But she had, rather stupidly she felt now, told Rosemarie. In a way it gave her an excuse to ring her friend. Even though Claire knew she should be hurt by her friend’s lack of support, she couldn’t believe that a long friendship like theirs could end just like that.

  ‘Hugh wants me to meet him,’ she’d said on the phone after some rather cool preliminaries from Rosemarie’s end.

  ‘How awful.’ Her friend was clearly shocked. ‘I hope you said no.’