On My Life

by Angela Clarke

  Now

  Who would have done this to me? Who would have put that stuff on my computer, who would have killed Emily? It makes no sense. For as long as I’m here it’s too easy to kid myself that Emily’s still alive. That she and Robert are living out there, normally; I just can’t see them. I’m exhausted. I need to sleep. I need to think. I need to survive tonight.

  With each gate we reach, and there are a lot, the noise from the cells grows louder. It bounces and barrels toward us, an indistinct clamour, like walking into a community swimming pool full of screaming kids. Vina doesn’t bat an eyelid. I can’t imagine ever growing used to this. It’s cacophonous. Constant. It sets my teeth on edge. I grip my parcel of blankets like a barrier, hiking it up to shield as much of my face as possible.

  Vina is looking at me with curiosity. Is she thinking she knows the face but can’t think from where? I don’t want to offend her. ‘How many people are there here?’

  ‘Fallenbrook was built to hold nine hundred reprobates.’ Kev draws the word out like he’s pulling it from stinking wet mud. ‘But we currently got one thousand one hundred and three,’ he says.

  The number swims in front of me and I try to make it mean something. Mesh it together with the noise I can hear.

  ‘It’s inhumane,’ Vina snaps.

  Surely he meant they’d extended since it was built?

  ‘Animals are treated better,’ she says.

  ‘We should never have stopped shipping cons off to the colonies,’ he sighs, as if our very presence pains him.

  My spine stiffens. ‘And then what would you do for a job?’ The words are out before I can stop them.

  Vina hoots.

  ‘Shut up unless you want to be on basic,’ he snaps, but he doesn’t look at me.

  ‘She got you,’ Vina says with a laugh.

  ‘Don’t go getting ideas, Vina.’ His voice is hard, angry, trying to claw back control. ‘You don’t want people to think you’re like her – it won’t end well.’

  Does he know about the images they found on my computer? Will that be released in the newspapers? The stringy beef in my stomach flops from side to side. Pick your battles, Jenna. I need to change the subject. ‘We nearly there?’

  Kev doesn’t bother to answer. He doesn’t have to. The lofty corridors of the old house suddenly splinter up and away into a triple-height wing. It’s as high as the whole building. We stop as Kev takes out his key to open the final gate.

  It reminds me of standing in front of the lion enclosure in the safari park we took Emily to. Except there you could see trees, and the sky. Here all I can see is acres of sickly yellow paint like congealed custard. Landings run round each floor, nets to catch falling possessions or prisoners strung between them like cobwebs. Along each landing, standing like upright coffins, are metal doors to the cells. Thin windows slash into them so everyone on the outside can see in, and everyone on the inside can see out. I see with relief that they’re all locked in. If Charlie Gould is here, she’s locked up. Unless she’s waiting in my cell . . .

  A fat sleek rat scurries along the edge of the wing and I almost scream. Neither Vina nor Kev react. Did they see it? Vina catches my eye. Yes. Yes, they did, and it’s normal.

  Now we’re closer, the words of the prisoners are clearer. They’re talking to each other:

  ‘Our Justine’s gonna be five next week . . .’

  ‘Starting school, then.’

  ‘They do it at four now. Too much too young . . .’

  ‘And I told him he’s got to step up.’

  ‘Beyoncé’s twins are in the Mirror. Pretty little things . . .’

  ‘Lend it to me in Association?’

  Someone’s singing. It sounds like a hymn.

  ‘. . . Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

  Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

  Change and decay in all around I see –

  O Thou who changest not, abide with me.’

  And then a sound that chills me to the bone floats from one of the cells. Someone is watching television. The news. ‘Gloucestershire resident Jennifer Burns was taken to prison today, after being charged with the murder of her fourteen-year-old stepdaughter. Press are calling the thirty-two-year-old recruitment consultant The Blonde Slayer. Her fiancé, wealthy hotelier Robert Milcombe, is still missing and police would like to hear from anyone who was in the area of . . .’

  Panic swarms inside me like angry wasps. They’ll show photos, won’t they? Like the newspaper. The other prisoners will know it’s me. I dip my head forward, suddenly thankful that Gould has obliterated half my face. I need to change my appearance. I need to hide.

  But neither Kev nor Vina show signs of having heard the report.

  And though I want to keep my head down, I can’t help but look up, up into the lofty, looming wing.

  ‘It’s huge.’ Despite being a triple-height room, it feels airless, and smells metallic, stale, of cheap, sharp antiseptic. It catches in my throat.

  ‘Stop dawdling.’ Kev has the gate open. ‘My shift ends soon, and if you’re not in your cell by then, you’ll be checked into seg.’

  Vina pushes me from behind. ‘Come on, man.’

  I force my feet to move. Three days ago I was safe at home, with the man and the young girl that I love. But someone tore that life to shreds. Each step reverberates through me, up, out into the wing, and echoes back, slamming against me with force. As hollow as I am.

  Now

  I don’t watch as the door is bolted behind me. Can’t. I grip my blankets tight. The cell is smaller than the room with the magnetic chair in it. Claustrophobia tickles at my edges. It’s narrow, a high barred slim window at one end. A toilet, no seat, stained black from mould, in the corner to my right. Someone has stretched a sheet of what looks like the paper roll on a doctor’s couch in front of it from wall to wall, a flimsy attempt at a privacy screen. Someone who is sitting on the top bunk bed in front of me.

  Thin, young, only late teens, with black hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, she doesn’t look intimidating. But I still can’t move. She’s wrapped up in blankets, a magazine resting on the pillow over her lap.

  ‘Telly’s broken,’ she says.

  I nod.

  ‘Supposed to have a new one five days ago but they’re dragging their heels.’ She sounds stronger than she looks. Her green sweatshirt balloons out from the top of her blankets.

  ‘I’m keeping the top bunk,’ she says.

  ‘Sure,’ I nod. I can’t make my feet move. The door is bolted behind me. I’m locked in with a stranger. Voices carry outside. It’s still so noisy. I shouldn’t be here.

  ‘What you done to your face?’ She points at her own pixie features.

  My stinging nose bristles. ‘Fell,’ I say. I can’t let anyone know I was attacked, they’ll want to know why.

  ‘I usually turn the light off in a bit – this lot wakes early.’ She jerks a thumb at the wall, to which she has stuck photos and hearts that look like they’ve been cut from magazines.

  She means the other inmates. I force myself to move toward the bed. The mattress is thin, the frame basic.

  The girl above shifts on her bunk and the frame creaks. I can smell her. Radox, and is that a hint of nicotine? I said I smoked. Have they put me in with a smoker? She’s still talking.

  ‘The screws can turn the light on and off from outside, like. You know, if they want to do a headcount or you’re giving trouble or that. And if you piss them off they leave it on all night.’

  They leave the light on all night? Isn’t that one of the ways they torture people in Guantanamo Bay?

  ‘But you won’t be pissing them off, will you?’ She pauses to peer down at me.

  My scalp prickles. She feels so close. I want to scream. It takes everything I have to shake my head.

  She tuts, dissatisfied with the inadequacy of my response. But my tongue is dry and heavy in my mouth. Huffing, she rolls over, making the whole b
unk squeak and rock. Her magazine rustles. I can’t look at her. I focus on stretching the sheet over the mattress, piling the blankets up. I’m so thankful for the extra one. Sitting on my bed I have some privacy. I take off the soiled T-shirt and joggies, and replace them quickly with my new set. I put the jumper over the T-shirt; it’s too cold to sleep in anything less. I’ll work out what to do with the dirty clothes tomorrow. I want to brush my teeth, but I don’t want to use the bathroom in front of this woman. Can’t face it.

  ‘You done then?’ her voice comes from above.

  I want to say I need a minute. That I haven’t got used to it yet. But I’m too scared what will come out if I speak. I make a noise, a grunt.

  The woman above sighs, the bed rocks again and then the power cuts. I panic as everything is plunged into dark. My bed rocks and creaks as she shuffles back into position. For a second I can see nothing. Then the light from the moon begins to trace the room.

  People are still talking outside.

  ‘Shut up!’ shouts more than one voice.

  My heart is hammering in my chest. I roll over, pulling the blankets up tight around me. If the woman above tries to hurt me in the night, I should at least be alerted by the bed moving. But soon I can hear her breathing slow, and the gentle rasp of her snores. I can’t really be frightened of someone who sounds like a cat purring, can I?

  I screw my eyes shut. How has this happened? How did I get here? I open my mouth in a silent howl of pain. I don’t move, don’t make a sound, just let the tears wash over me, and into the stiff surface of my pillow.

  Now

  I barely sleep. Fitful starts throughout the night. Emily runs laughing through my mind. I don’t deserve sleep. I don’t deserve rest. For as long as I am in here the real killer is free. The real killer may have Robert. What have I done to deserve this? Someone killed Emily and destroyed my life. Who would have done this to us? Someone unhinged that I slighted in some way? You read about people who accidentally cut someone up on the road and the driver of the other car follows them and kills them. Stalkers who target people for random reasons. Perhaps it’s someone we rejected from work? There have been people I’ve interviewed who I wasn’t comfortable with recommending to any of our clients. One guy was so creepy, so unnerving in the way he stared at me when it was just the two of us in the room, I wanted to shower myself clean after the interview. No way was I going to recommend him to anyone. Could it have been him? There’s something I’m still not seeing. A piece of the puzzle that will make it all make sense.

  A cry from one of the other cells cuts into my thoughts and my heart thumps loudly in my chest. I grip my blankets. We’re locked in. No one can get out of their cell to hurt me. The girl above me grunts and shifts in her sleep. The bed rocks. And as the adrenaline floods round my body it crystallises my thoughts. Sharpening my focus on the day Emily died. It must be someone we know. Someone who had access to our house. Someone who wasn’t expecting Emily to be home. Or someone who arranged to meet her there? But who? My conscience fights with the logic. There’s no other way. It has to be someone who knew me and Robert well. Danger must have been close and I never sensed it. Familiar faces twist like funhouse-mirror reflections in my tired mind. Who could have done this? Who did I get wrong? Someone betrayed us.

  Somewhere in the early hours of the morning, I guess, when the moans and crying from the other cells have grown silent, I fall asleep.

  For a moment when I wake I don’t remember where I am. Then it all comes rushing back to me, like the morning after Nan died. I am in a bunk bed in a prison cell. Emily is dead. Robert is missing. Someone betrayed us. And I can hear my cellmate weeing.

  I roll over.

  ‘Hey! What about some privacy!’ The tiny brunette is sitting on the loo, the paper screen not hiding the fact her rucked up sweatshirt was covering a bump. She’s pregnant. They lock pregnant women up? Jesus. She’s a kid. ‘What, you never seen anyone take a piss before?’

  I was staring. ‘Sorry,’ I mumble and roll over to face the wall. It’s a dirty white colour, pockmarked where the paint’s given way and the brick is visible underneath. Someone has scratched into it: Mandi was ere. I hope you got out, Mandi.

  There’s a flush. ‘All right – I’m done,’ the girl says.

  I can’t believe I slept. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven thirty,’ she says. ‘You did well for your first night – you been in before?’ There’s a small square of reflective plastic above the breakfast-bowl-sized sink and she’s yanking her hair up into its tight ponytail.

  ‘No. First time,’ I say. Is it the done thing to ask what someone’s in for? I’d quite like to know who I’m sharing a cell with. ‘I’m Jenna.’

  ‘Kelly,’ the girl says. ‘Probs should’ve said that last night, shouldn’t I? I get grumpy when I get tired. And they said you’d be here much earlier.’

  I think of the police’s accusations and my gut twists. I should say sorry, explain. I’m rooted to the bed.

  ‘So how long you got?’ she says.

  ‘Err, I don’t know. I’ve got to appear in court again next week – enter my plea.’ I try to remember what Mr Peterson said when we came out the Magistrates’ Court. Everything happened so fast.

  ‘Crown?’ she asks, and I realise she’s referring to the court. I nod.

  ‘They do them over the video link,’ she says. ‘Saves them staff and bother for going the two hours back to Gloucester.’

  So I won’t even get to see the outside world? But then I won’t have to go back in the sweatbox either, I think with relief.

  ‘That’s where they did me,’ Kelly is saying. ‘The judge did me up right and proper. Eight months. Eight months for nicking a bottle of wine – how was I supposed to know it was over two hundred quid’s worth. I mean, who pays that much for a bottle of booze?’ I think of Judith and David’s cellar, their parties. ‘It weren’t even that good.’ She shakes her head. ‘It was probably the hormones, you know.’ She turns to me. ‘I don’t nick stuff normally. But that’s what my baby daddy gave me: he’s fucked off and I’ve got a bloody sentence, and a life sentence.’ She pats her stomach and laughs.

  I don’t like to ask how old she is – eighteen, maybe? Only a few years older than Emily, I think with a twinge. ‘Err, when you due?’ I say. Surely they’ll let her out before then.

  She looks sad for a moment. ‘Twenty-first of June. Gemini–Cancer cusp. He’ll be trouble.’ She smiles.

  Four days after I’m supposed to get married. I can’t think about that right now.

  ‘So how ’bout you – what you done then?’

  Kev’s words come to me without thinking. ‘Party girl. Drugs,’ I say.

  She looks warily at my clothes.

  ‘I’m clean.’ I reassure her.

  She nods. ‘You never know who you’re gonna end up with in here. Hopefully it’s you and me till baby comes – I like to know where I stand.’

  I’ll be out before then. I have to be.

  ‘You wanna use the bathroom?’ She unpegs the paper sheet and holds it open.

  I remember the black uncovered toilet bowl. I can catch the sour stench of blocked drains. I feel sick again.

  ‘You got to get a wiggle on,’ Kelly says. ‘Thirty minutes till Free Flow.’

  ‘Free Flow?’ I place my feet on the floor, tilt my head forward. That feels a bit better.

  ‘Yeah, Free Flow, when they unlock for those of us who’ve got work, education, appointments and that. Happens four times a day. 8.30 a.m. Then 11.30 a.m. back to cell for lunch – we usually get a baguette and a packet of crisps. Delivered to the door, or we fetch it from the wing if they’re feeling lazy and we get an extra five-minute walk about.’ She lists it off with her fingers. ‘2 p.m. Free Flow again, then again at 4.30 p.m. so you can get back for dinner. You get that off a tray in the wing, and your breakfast box at the same time. Then we eat in here. So I like to keep it clean, yeah?’ She looks at my stained clothes again.
<
br />   I nod.

  ‘Then 5.30 p.m. it’s lock up till 8.30 a.m. again.’

  ‘But what if I don’t have education or work?’ Anxiety blossoms inside me. The walls close in. This room is about four metres by two and shrinking.

  ‘Well,’ Kelly says, ‘we’re supposed to get an hour’s Association once a day. Where you can see the chemist, apply for any jobs or education, have a shower, make phone calls and play pool and that. They also let you out in the yard.’ I think of the sky. ‘It’s supposed to be in the morning. But it varies. They’re always short-staffed and sometimes we only get thirty minutes, or nothing at all.’

  ‘So we’re locked in for the whole time?’ I thought we’d be allowed on the wing. Out for exercise. Even with Association, that’s twenty-three hours inside this cell. My throat begins to close. I can’t breathe.

  ‘There’s roll-call as well – that’s when they check none of us have dug a tunnel and escaped.’ She laughs at her own joke. ‘It happens at random, and they often get us to stand outside the cell for the head count. So you can stretch your legs then,’ she says as if this is a genuine bonus.

  I shake my head. I can’t do this.

  ‘You not had your Induction yet?’ Kelly says. Then taps her palm against her forehead. ‘What am I saying – it’s Saturday, isn’t it? Bloody baby brain. I’d forget to put my own head on.’

  Induction?

  Her face shifts, ‘Oh mate, Friday’s the worst day to get banged up. You won’t get your Induction till Monday now, which means they won’t let you out till then. We almost never get Association on the weekends because the screws fuck off with their families.’

  ‘What about you?’ I suddenly don’t want to be alone in this cell.

  Kelly looks sad. ‘Sorry, bruv. I’m signed up for the Adventists today, and the Methodists tomorrow. I ain’t much one for god-bothering, but it’s better than being in here, you know?’

  I nod my head dumbly. I’m going to be locked in a cell on my own. All weekend. ‘I need to see my lawyer,’ I say.