Tumbledown

by Cari Hunter

  *

  The narrow window level with Sarah’s bunk looked out onto a concrete yard that was surrounded by a double chain link fence topped with rolls of barbed wire. Bird excrement covered the sill, but no birds came to perch there while she watched, and even when the sky grew lighter, she could hear nothing but the varying degrees of Camille’s snoring and a woman muttering endlessly in the adjoining cell.

  Camille, adjusted to the jail’s routine, woke up three minutes before the process of unlocking the cells began. She shook her head as she studied Sarah’s face. “You’ll get used to it,” she said.

  She looked younger than Sarah had expected, but she had badly healed scars on her arms that appeared to be the result of self-inflicted wounds and the veins standing out against her pale skin were blown and pitted. She tilted her head when she saw the bandages covering Sarah’s wrists, evidently supposing that she and Sarah had something in common.

  Sarah, weary of trying to tell people what had actually happened, said nothing.

  “Washroom first, so take your kit.” Camille indicated the plastic wallet containing Sarah’s allocation of toiletries. “Then breakfast. I usually shower after dinner, when it’s less crowded.”

  Sarah nodded her agreement. The babble of voices in the corridor was increasing as the cells were opened sequentially and the inmates shouted greetings to each other, but it took another twenty minutes for her door to be released. Keeping close to Camille, she waited for her turn to use the toilet, doing her best to ignore the curious looks and murmurs of recognition or speculation from the other women. By the time a cubicle came free, she was so nervous that she kicked the door shut and knelt over the toilet bowl, retching, but she had eaten little the day before and her dry heaves amounted to nothing. At the sink, she splashed cold water on her face and brushed her teeth with thin, gritty toothpaste.

  “Don’t swallow the water or you really will puke,” Camille said, and shrugged in apology as Sarah hurriedly spat out her mouthful.

  The crowd in the washroom had thinned, leaving the last woman in the shower humming cheerfully to herself in relative privacy. Sarah followed Camille to a dining area that appeared to have been modeled on a school cafeteria, except that it lacked the motivational posters and metal cutlery, and every piece of furniture was bolted to the floor. Waiting in line with her compartmentalized tray, she looked around at the tables of women, some eating in silence, others chatting and laughing. Many appeared perfectly at home in their surroundings, while the guards seemed to favor a tactic of minimal intervention, remaining in the background as inmates served their fellow inmates and everyone cleaned up after themselves.

  Several women on different tables tried to wave Camille and Sarah over to empty seats. Camille grinned. “Fish are always the most popular girls in the room,” she said, before noticing Sarah’s bewilderment and explaining, “Newbies never feel like eating nothing. They’ll all be hoping you’ll share.”

  “Oh, right.” The strong smell of institutional cooking certainly did little for Sarah’s appetite, nor did a breakfast offering of white bread, peanut butter and jelly, grits, and a plastic cup of milk.

  “Make sure you get something in trade.” Camille led them over to a table with two spare seats. “Or they’ll take your food even when you are hungry.”

  Within five minutes of sitting down, Sarah had swapped her bread and the peanut butter and jelly for the promise of paper and a pen. She had also inadvertently revealed that most people in England wouldn’t be able to identify a bowl of grits in a breakfast cereal lineup.

  “You don’t have grits in England?” One of the women appeared genuinely horrified by the thought.

  “No, we don’t,” Sarah said. “People tend to stick with porridge. Would you like mine?” she added, feeling the urge to make amends for the transgression.

  The woman eagerly scooped the grits onto her tray, took a forkful, and spoke with her mouth full. “Patsy in the kitchen today?” She craned her head toward the serving hatch. “She never puts enough fuckin’ salt in.”

  “Quit bitchin’,” Camille said. “If they were that bad, you wouldn’t be eating Sarah’s.” Her intervention was enough to mollify the woman, who resumed eating in silence.

  Sarah sipped her milk, hoping it might ease the cramping in her stomach. The shutter on the hatch clattered into place, which the women seemed to take as a signal to finish their meals.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  “Lock up and cleaning,” Camille told her, pointing out where to stack the empty trays.

  “And then?” It was only eight a.m.; she couldn’t imagine the cell would take very long to clean.

  The look she received in response, however, implied she had asked a particularly stupid question.

  “Then we have lunch,” Camille said.

  *

  Choking and sobbing, Leah dragged herself up from the floor using the frame of a kitchen chair. She made it onto her knees before a sharp pain in her abdomen forced her to crouch back on all fours.

  “Oh God, help me,” she whispered, blood dripping from her mouth to paint patterns on the tiles.

  In the next room, Caleb lowered the volume on the television, now that he no longer needed it to conceal the sound of his blows. His cell phone rang and he must have knocked something over as he grabbed for it; Leah heard a thud as the object landed on the carpet.

  “She’s in Prescott County,” he said. Then, almost yelling, “No, not Penobscot, Prescott, you dumb fuck.”

  Leah wiped her chin with her palm. Then, still gripping the chair, she pulled herself to her feet. Caleb’s laptop lay in front of her on the kitchen table. Although its screen was dark, whatever he had seen on there had gotten him so enraged that he hadn’t taken the time to close it down, and it sat as if waiting for further instructions, its cooling fan whirring patiently.

  She rinsed her mouth at the sink and found a clean cloth to press against the tattered cut on the inside of her cheek. She could hear Caleb next door, still preoccupied on the phone. She touched the mouse pad with one finger, telling herself that was all she would do; if it didn’t work, she would leave it alone.

  A color mug shot of Caleb instantly filled the screen. Beneath the image, several lines of text listed his date of birth, his employment record, and his home address—including the date he had last been seen there. There was no mention of his being married. Perhaps whoever had been watching him hadn’t been watching him very closely, or perhaps they just didn’t think Leah was significant. The short message in the e-mail made the blood in her mouth and the ache in her belly easier to bear, though: “Received from FBI. Sent out to all the police officers in the district.”

  She stared at the photograph until the screen dimmed and then darkened. There was a sudden, rapid approach of footsteps in the stairwell, and Caleb paused his telephone conversation mid-sentence. She turned hopefully toward the front door, but there was no knock, no battering ram to splinter the wood and force a way in. A woman shouted for her children to stop running about, and shortly afterward everything fell quiet.

  As Leah hobbled into the bathroom, Caleb started talking into the phone again, his voice now wary and hushed. Let him see how it feels to be hunted, she thought, dipping a handful of tissue between her legs to check if she was bleeding. The tissue was clean when she pulled it away. She sat heavily on the edge of the bathtub, offering up silent thanks and adding her own whispered prayer onto the end.

  “Oh God, please let somebody find us.”

  *

  “No, thank you. No, it’s fine. You don’t need to do that.”

  With the phone clamped between her ear and shoulder, Alex taped the top of the cardboard box shut and wrote “Food” on it in marker pen. Realizing that the woman on the other end of the line wasn’t going to relent, and too polite to just hang up on her, she reeled off an e-mail address she had long ago deleted so that the woman could attempt to send her a holiday home rental brochure.
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br />   “Thanks. Yes, I will. Good-bye.” She struck the address off her list and caught the phone as it dropped. That particular scruffy-looking cottage had been standing empty since January, which explained its owner’s desperate sales pitch. After five days of making phone calls, chasing down answering machine messages, and fielding e-mails, Alex had only eight of the seventy-nine local holiday homes left to contact. She was also preparing to move into one of them.

  As she set the box of food by the back door, she heard a rustling from under the porch. Even though the noise was familiar and she was sure of its cause, she took up her Glock, unlocked the door, and peered out to check.

  “Tilly, they’re not under there, sweetie.”

  She waited for Tilly to crawl out from beneath the cabin and threw her a chew treat to distract her from her search for the chickens. They had already been collected by Esther, who owned a plot of land big enough to accommodate them and who was one of the few people Alex could think to ask for help. The small lakeside cottage Alex had arranged to rent in Tawny did allow pets, but she thought that six chickens, in addition to two cats and a dog, might be stretching the definition somewhat.

  A sharp scratch to a fingertip made her aware how vigorously she was drumming her hands against the porch railing. She dug out the splinter, stuck her finger in her mouth, and checked her watch: ten a.m. Although sorely tempted to get in the Silverado and head straight out to Prescott, she forced herself to wait another half hour. That would still leave ample time to find the jail and pass through the security procedures. She had been on the verge of dozing off the previous night when Bridie phoned to confirm her place on the visitor list and to tell her that the allotted time for surnames A-L was two till three p.m. It would be the first time Alex had seen Sarah since the arraignment.

  Every time they spoke on the phone, Sarah would say, “I’m okay, don’t worry,” and Alex would agree and promise not to worry, and then spend half the night reneging on that promise and the other half thinking about what else she could do to help Sarah when it was finally light enough to give up on sleep. Sarah’s priorities were slightly simpler: “spare knickers” had been her main request, along with a few dollars for her commissary card. Alex might not be able to guarantee her any progress on her case, but she would at least be able to supply her with some decent underwear.

  Twenty-five minutes.

  Alex decided to take a shower before selecting an outfit that wouldn’t fall foul of the jail’s dress code. As it mainly focused on the prohibition of “see-through tops, low-cut blouses, miniskirts, halter tops, and gang colors,” she didn’t foresee much of a problem. While Tilly resumed her hunt for the missing chickens, Alex relocked the back door and tried to remember which box she had packed all the toiletries in.

  *

  Sitting cross-legged on her bunk, Sarah reread the paragraph of impenetrable legalese, then gave up and closed the book. She had been trying to concentrate on the text for the last fifty minutes, but nothing was sinking in and her notes made little sense. There was still another hour to go before visiting and—unlike many of her fellow inmates—she had yet to perfect the art of whiling away the time.

  The block was calm, for the most part, and she had the cell to herself, as most of the women congregated in the rec room or lingered over lunch. In the last five days, she had concluded that jail was an awful lot of loneliness, boredom, and petty routine, broken up by an occasional outburst of violence and the serving of barely edible food. The majority of the convicted women passed their sentences watching television, volunteering for work and study programs, or dozing in their cells. The remand prisoners, meanwhile, were given unrestricted access to the jail’s small legal library, and those literate enough were encouraged to research their own cases.

  Every inch of the thin pad of paper she had bargained for on the first day was now covered in scribbled notes, with the exception of the single sheet on which she intended to write a letter to Alex. She had started the letter three times in as many days, each time shredding the first lines until the paper was barely a third of its original size and looked like a rat had nibbled on it. What she wanted to say was so simple: “I miss you, I love you, and I hope you’re okay,” but it always made her cry, which inevitably smeared the ink or stained the paper. Alex would never believe what Sarah said on the phone if she sent a letter that looked as if it had been used to blow her nose. She shook her head wryly. She didn’t have a hope in hell of Alex believing her anyway, so she might as well just write the damn thing. Later, she promised herself, and swapped the legal tome for a copy of Pride and Prejudice. She had always intended to catch up on the classics one day, and now seemed as good an opportunity as any.

  *

  Prescott County Jail was a new redbrick building, housing a facility that had outgrown its original position adjacent to the County Courthouse and been relocated to a patch of waste ground on the outskirts of town. The guard at the gate directed Alex to park in a small underground lot and follow the signs to the visiting center.

  “First time here?” he asked, and gave her a set of instructions without waiting for her to answer.

  She skimmed through the salient points, before leaving everything in the Silverado except her keys and driver’s license, which she handed obediently to one of the guards in the lobby. She watched a child in front of her stand stock-still for a pat down search and then assume the correct position for the guard to pass an electronic wand over him. He couldn’t have been more than six years old. When the guard had finished, the child grinned at his guardian and skipped through the arch of the final metal detector. Following his lead, Alex submitted to the various search procedures without uttering a word and nodded her thanks to the guard.

  “Second door on the left,” he told her as he made a note of her driver’s license number. “You’re authorized for a contact visit.”

  She nodded again and tried not to show any emotion. That meant she and Sarah were allowed a brief hug and kiss at the start and the end of the visit. Handholding was permissible, too, so long as their hands remained visible on the table throughout. The intimation that she should be grateful for that much opportunity to touch Sarah made her feel ill.

  A long line had formed outside the visiting room, and the door opened as Alex tagged herself onto the end. The adults filed in, holding children who chattered and tugged to go faster. All the women sitting waiting at the tables were dressed identically—bright red tabards over beige shirts—and it took Alex a few disorienting seconds to spot Sarah, seated in a far corner, beyond the main locus of noise and activity. She stood as Alex approached, a smile brightening her face even as tears filled her eyes.

  “Hey.” The familiar greeting came out in a rush of breath and she stepped forward to bury herself in Alex’s arms. She felt thin and her face was pale, but when they kissed, her lips were soft and her hands clasped Alex’s firmly.

  “Not sure beige is really your color, sweetheart,” Alex told her as they took seats opposite each other.

  “No? You should see me in Prison Transport Orange. It sets off my eyes a treat.”

  Alex edged a finger beneath the cuff of Sarah’s sleeve, tracing the ridge of one of the concealed lacerations. “How you doing? Really?”

  “Really?” Sarah held her gaze. “Good moments and bad moments, and then some truly horrible moments. But I’m mostly okay.” She caught hold of Alex’s wandering finger. “Those are healing fine. The antibiotics kicked in at last.”

  “Are you eating properly, then?”

  In their phone conversations, Sarah had repeatedly mentioned that the antibiotics had reduced her appetite, as if she wanted an excuse for any weight loss Alex might notice.

  “Better than I was.” She lowered her eyes. “But I ran out of toothpaste and soap a couple of days back, so…” She shrugged, as if the inference was clear. When Alex finally figured it out, her naivety made her want to kick herself.

  “You traded your meals.” She shook her h
ead, distraught. “Why didn’t you ask Bridie for money? You know she wouldn’t mind. She’d just add it to the fee.” As soon as the words left her, she regretted them; Sarah had had every ounce of her dignity stolen from her, and Alex was sitting there encouraging her to beg for pennies. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Fuck, just, ugh. Are you allowed to slap me?”

  “No,” Sarah said, but she was smiling. “I think that would probably be frowned on, even in a contact visit.”

  “I brought all your stuff, and money for your card, so no more skipping meals, okay?”

  Sarah’s smile widened. “You mean I finally get to wear my own kecks?”

  “Is that prison slang or northern English slang?”

  Sarah winked. “Just testing. It’s northern for knickers, or ‘panties’ to you. Believe me when I tell you that prison knickers are nobody’s friend.”

  “Scratchy?”

  “Oh, that’s just the start of it. Scratchy, available in any color so long as it’s beige, and amusingly ill-fitting. The pair I have on come up to my armpits.”

  Alex rocked back in her chair and laughed. “God, I fucking miss you.”

  “I bet I miss you more.” Sarah shook her head and changed the subject. “How’re the rabble?”

  “The remaining three are slightly confused by your absence and the absence of the chickens, but they’re managing.”

  “Bandit behaving?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You moving tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, rental starts at ten. I put the new address and number in with your things.”

  “Lovely. So…” Sarah awkwardly tapped the nail of Alex’s index finger, obviously reluctant to say what was on her mind.