On My Life

by Angela Clarke

  ‘That one always sticks in people’s memories,’ Abi says. She turns the page again. The words are now a series of positive affirmations. Almost like incantations, filling the pages. ‘The number-one governor liked that bit.’

  The words wink up at me from the plastic.

  You deserve to live a full life.

  You deserve to be loved.

  You deserve to be happy.

  A lump forms in my throat. ‘It’s amazing,’ I manage.

  We soon reach the front of the queue. Kelly and I head back to our cell with our trays of now cold food. Abi heads to hers to safely deposit her book.

  Kelly and I perch on the edge of my bed, eating in silence for a moment. The smell from the curry has already started to hang in the air. We all eat in our cells, and with the window opening less than an inch it’s hard to keep it smelling fresh in here. But I don’t care as much right now. Abi’s story, the things she’s been through, what she’s survived, those positive things she was still able to write, have warmed me more than this dhal.

  ‘Do you not like Abi’s book?’ I ask Kelly, as she scrapes her tray with her plastic fork.

  ‘Course I like it,’ she sighs. ‘It’s just everyone already likes Abi because she does the aerobics classes, and she’s going to be a personal trainer when she gets out, and then she’s written this amazing book as well. I was always crap at everything at school.’ Kelly suddenly looks small, and I remember just how very young she is.

  ‘Those bags you make for work must be pretty good if they sell them in high-street shops,’ I say.

  She sighs again. ‘It’s just following a pattern, anyone could do it. It’s not like writing your own book.’

  I think about the look she gave Vina. The empty diary Kelly let me have the pages out of for my notes. She’d said something then too. She wants to do this. ‘Well, why don’t you write your own book then?’

  ‘I couldn’t do that,’ she says.

  ‘Why not? You’re smart and funny and entertaining,’ I say. ‘You’re always making me and Abi laugh.’

  She looks doubtful. ‘But what would I write about?’

  ‘Well . . . what about a story?’ For a second I feel like I’m back in Sally’s office, coaching a prospective candidate again.

  ‘Nah,’ Kelly shakes her head. ‘I wanna do something helpful – like Abi. Make some good out of all this.’ She signals the cell with her hands.

  ‘Okay, well then what about self-help, or a guide of some sort?’ I look at the make-up on her face. ‘A make-up guide?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she sniffs, looking more like her usual self. She picks up the diary she gave me earlier and opens it. ‘Might write a few ideas down.’

  I smile. ‘Good plan.’

  After lock-up, Kelly sits on her bed, her pen scratching away in her book. After an hour or so I hear her abandon it in favour of the fluttery turn of one of her magazines.

  I’m still staring at my own notes. My own story. You deserve to be happy. Not until I find who did this to us. Someone framed me. Someone who planned it and wore gloves. Someone who had access to my computer. Someone who had access to my house. Someone who was close to us. Could it really be David? Could he kill Emily, and hurt Robert? His own granddaughter, his own son. And if so, where is Robert now? DI Langton’s words about no activity on Robert’s cards, about his mobile being found at our house, spring into my mind unbidden. A small gasp escapes my lips.

  ‘You all right?’ Kelly says from above.

  ‘Cramp,’ I say quickly.

  Robert is not dead. I won’t believe it. David had opportunity. He had access. He was strong enough to force Robert to go. He knows where our knives are. My mind swings between incredulity and suspicion. Because why would he do this?

  What possible motive could David have?

  Then

  I hear the car door slam as I’m getting out of the bath. It’s David’s car. Emily is storming away from it, a look of thunder on her face. What’s happened? She should be at school.

  ‘Do not walk away from me when I’m talking to you, young lady!’ David flings his door open and shouts.

  Instinctively I duck behind the curtain of the dressing room. It’s only been a month since I moved in, and I don’t feel comfortable witnessing a family row. I peer through the gap in the curtain.

  Emily rounds on him, hands on hips, her voice high and indignant. ‘It has nothing to do with you anyway. Dad should have come and got me!’ I’ve never heard her talk like this, let alone to David.

  ‘As I’m the one who pays for your school fees, I’m the one they ring when they threaten to expel you!’ he roars.

  Expel her? Oh my god, what’s happened?

  ‘It was just one puff, for god’s sake.’ Emily throws her arms up in exasperation. ‘It wasn’t even my joint!’

  Oh crap. David looks livid.

  ‘The school have a zero-tolerance policy. What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t been there to smooth things over? You would have been out.’ His voice is threateningly calm.

  ‘I don’t care! I don’t like the damn school anyway,’ Emily says. I know that’s a lie, she’s just caught in the moment. Not enough to swear though, Robert’s parents are funny about that. She’s still watching her limits.

  ‘You ungrateful little madam.’ David marches toward her, pounding his feet into the gravel, and for one horrible moment I think he’s going to raise his hand.

  Emily does too because she shrinks backwards. And when Robert’s Range Rover comes screeching into the driveway she races toward it. He jumps out, and she runs into his arms. ‘What’s going on? Dad – why didn’t you call me?’ he says.

  ‘Your daughter,’ David runs his hands through his hair, ‘has been caught doing drugs.’

  Robert suddenly thrusts Emily away from him. ‘You stupid girl!’ I clasp my hand to my mouth. I’ve never seen him like this before. It’s panic, I realise.

  ‘It was just one puff, Dad. I’ve never done it before,’ Emily cries. ‘I promise.’

  He lets her go and she stumbles back. Still shaking. He can’t have meant to hurt her. He turns to David. ‘You should have called. I’m her father.’ Robert sounds venomous. I hold my breath.

  ‘You were in a meeting, and your daughter needs to appreciate that the world doesn’t revolve around her.’ David and Robert stare at each other for a second. I can hear Emily snivelling.

  ‘Robert,’ David says, warningly. As if it’s him who has been caught with drugs.

  Robert almost spits at Emily. ‘Go to your room!’ I’ve never heard him sound so angry. The hairs on my arm stand up. I want to make it better. I want him to calm down. ‘You’ll be punished for this.’ She runs into the house, slamming the door behind her. The glass in the windows rattles as she thumps upstairs.

  ‘You should have called me,’ he says to David.

  ‘Don’t start,’ David snaps. ‘I warned you this would happen. This is because of her.’

  Her? Who’s her?

  ‘I knew this would happen when she started dressing like that,’ David says.

  Like what? She dresses like a normal teen.

  ‘And you should have stamped out that ridiculous vegetarian notion as soon as your mother told me about it,’ David snaps. ‘They need to understand how lucky they are. They’re like cattle. Give an inch and they take a mile.’

  Did he just compare teenagers – or women – to cattle?

  Robert sounds like he’s pleading. ‘Lots of teenagers experiment, Dad, it doesn’t mean anything. She’s a kid.’ There’s the man I love. There’s the voice of reason.

  David shakes his head, as if he’s not listening. ‘You defied me once and we’re still paying for it. I sometimes think it would have been kinder to start afresh completely after her mother.’

  Defied him? Paying for what? What does he mean?

  ‘She’s a good kid.’ Robert sounds hurt.

  David points a finger at him. ‘If this had got out, i
f she’d been arrested – then what? I play bridge with the Chief Commissioner. Imagine how embarrassing that would be for us. For the company. You need to keep your house in order, Robert. If you’re not up to the job . . .’

  ‘That’s not fair. Everyone makes mistakes,’ Robert says.

  ‘You make mistakes,’ David says. ‘And I clear them up. It’s got to stop.’ His voice is so cold I shiver.

  What mistakes? What’s he talking about? I can hear Emily sobbing in her bedroom.

  ‘Yes, Father.’ Robert looks at the ground.

  I burn with embarrassment for him. Is this how it looks from the outside when Mum and I fight?

  David exhales, walks over to his car and drives off. Robert stands there for a moment, looking up at the sky. I don’t know what to do, but I want to go to him. I want to ease his pain.

  Pulling my dressing gown and trainers on, I go downstairs as quietly as possible. The last thing Emily needs now is a witness.

  Robert is still outside, looking out over the fields, as I step quietly across to him. ‘Hey,’ I say softly, wrapping my arms around him from behind. ‘Sorry – I was upstairs.’ He stiffens. All families have their rows. David will calm down. It’s not that big a deal. ‘She’s a good kid – I bet she didn’t even inhale!’ I go for light-hearted.

  He forcibly shrugs me off, and turns away. ‘You don’t know anything about it,’ he snaps, and kicks his car door shut with such force I fear the window will shatter.

  My heart is thumping in my chest. I said the wrong thing. I made it worse.

  He sighs. Runs his hands through his hair, just like his dad does. ‘Sorry,’ he says, and looks up with an apologetic smile. ‘Teenagers – hey?’

  I loop my arm round him as we walk back into the house.

  Now

  I’d excused it in the past as his wanting the best, but David is a bully. Did he and Emily have another row? Did he hit her this time? I keep thinking over that day. The her David blamed for Emily’s experimentation could have been me. I’d just moved in – maybe he thought I made her act out. Maybe that wasn’t the last time she did drugs. But how can I prove any of this? My mind whirrs with it all. At least I’ve got a distraction today. My probation period has finally ended, the relevant forms have cleared, and Mum and Ness will be able to visit for the first time. I get up and dress before Kelly leaves her bed. Carefully facing the wall at all times, so she can’t see my stomach. My bump is certainly protruding now; it’s like my baby was just waiting for me to be told before it put in a proper appearance. My lower abdomen is firm, rounded. I’ll have to keep the big baggy jumper Kelly gave me on at all times. Until I can get out of here.

  Kelly’s staring at one of the photos she has stuck on her wall. A little old couple sit on a bench, small and curled by age, her with fluffy set grey hair, him with a gummy smile and two walking sticks leaning against his knee. Her grandparents.

  She must have seen me looking, because she suddenly points and says, ‘My mum and dad.’

  The shock must show on my face.

  Kelly sits up and grins. ‘I’m the surprise baby. They thought they couldn’t have kids. Mum thought it was the menopause – but it was me.’

  I think of my own surprise baby. ‘Bet they were delighted.’

  ‘Dad bought the whole pub a round after he got up off the floor,’ she laughed.

  ‘They coming today?’

  Her smile faltered. ‘No. It’s a bit far for them with Dad’s legs now. And Mum don’t see so well since her diabetes got worse.’

  I can’t believe I put my foot in it, and after Kelly was down about Abi’s book as well. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She forces a smile. ‘They still come once a month. Gotta save up for the cab fare. Two more weeks,’ she says.

  Everything is carved into units of time in here. Measured out in painful seconds. ‘It’ll soon be here.’

  Kelly gives her best impression of being okay, but I keep my excitement at my own potential visit under wraps until Free Flow.

  The visitors’ centre is like a school assembly hall. Windows, high up the triple-height walls, presumably out of reach of us inmates, pour natural light onto us. The daffodils will be blooming in David and Judith’s garden, but from in here I can’t see anything but the grey spring sky. With its pale-lemon painted walls, it has a more airy, cleaner feel than the rest of the prison. In the diagonally opposite corners, there are two doors. One through which we prisoners have just filed. And another through which the visitors will enter. Abi grins eagerly in front of me. Her hair down, freshly cleaned and flowing around her shoulders today, she’s not wearing her regulation trousers, but smart black leggings. There’s an excited, expectant air to the room, that even the horrid stained red tabards they’ve given us all to wear cannot dim. Brightly coloured homemade artwork and streamers decorate the walls, between the regulation posters instructing visitors they’ll be prosecuted for smuggling in banned items.

  ‘Ladies,’ calls Ryan. He’s gelled his hair into a quiff at the front so that it looks like it’s constantly pointing which way he should go. ‘Ladies!’ The lively chatter hushes. ‘It’s a busy one today, so take your seats quickly.’

  Vina, who is at the front of the queue, with a brightly coloured hair wrap I’ve not seen her wear before, leads the way, walking to a table at the far end of the room. We all follow.

  Each table is small and oval. They’re evenly placed, reminding me of taking GCSEs. I’m three rows back, toward the middle. I take the one chair that’s on my side. They’re padded, and blue, like mass-market cheap conference chairs. But this is the first time I’ve sat on anything cushioned since I’ve been inside, and it feels ridiculously comfortable. Opposite me are two more chairs, where my visitors will sit. If they come. Please let them come. Every chair has been tethered to the floor by what looks like a taut metal rope. Have they always been like that or were they added after trouble?

  Ryan walks among us, checking nothing’s out of place. ‘You’re allowed to stand up – and give a cuddle to your visitors,’ he says with a leer. There’s a few saucy cheers. ‘Once at the beginning of the session and once at the end of the session. The rest of the time you are to keep those booties pressed firmly against those chairs.’ He gives me a sly look.

  I drop my head, wishing I hadn’t when I catch a whiff of the stale sweat that has soaked this tabard. I can smell the previous wearer’s distress. I think of these chairs flying through the air.

  Ryan is still going. ‘It’s been explained to your visitors that they are able to purchase hot drinks and snacks for themselves, and for you lucky lot, from the tuck shop.’ He points at the counter in the corner by the visitors’ door.

  A woman, not a prisoner I’d say from her skinny jeans, bouffant blow-dried hair and smart blue apron, waves cheerfully from behind a small shelving display of flapjacks, chocolate bars and crisps. My stomach growls.

  ‘Kiddies are free to play in the corner,’ Ryan says. There is a selection of children’s toys, the bright joyful plastic jarring with their home. It doesn’t matter how nice they’ve tried to make it look: children are about to visit their mothers in a prison. What does that do to a kid?

  Ryan is making his way down the next row of tables now and he pauses at the table of the timid-looking woman who stood behind us in the dinner queue yesterday. ‘And,’ he said, ‘young children are obviously allowed a few extra cuddles. Just try to stay seated please.’ He nods at her kindly. Maybe he’s not all sleaze and cheese.

  ‘You got kids?’ a curvy woman to my left asks. I fight the urge to rest my palm on my belly.

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. Not yet.

  ‘It never gets any easier,’ she says. Then, leaning in as if to tell me a secret, ‘My Rhianna thinks this is where Mummy works. Marc is old enough not to fall for that. He don’t come with my mother any more.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, at a loss at what else to add.

  She shrugs. ‘Only three mor
e months left and then I’m out.’

  The thought of not seeing my child is like guy ropes fired into my flesh, pulling at my stomach. ‘And he won’t come at all?’

  Her gaze drops to the floor as if it’s too heavy to hold up. ‘He feels guilty. He’s got to get over it.’

  ‘For not visiting?’ Everyone’s barriers are down in here, like we’re all sharing the same moment. Like how strangers chat in the ladies’ loos in restaurants and bars.

  ‘For putting me in here,’ she says.

  My shock must show on my face, as she continues.

  ‘He had hash in the house. Dealing,’ she whispers. ‘But it’s my name on the lease, see? I had to prove that I never knew it were there.’

  I’m staggered. This can’t be right. ‘But that’s not fair. What did your solicitor say?’

  ‘Bloody useless.’ She shrugs again. ‘It’s better this way, though. Cause I said it was mine. If my boy goes into juvie now . . .’ she shakes her head. ‘This way he’s got a shot.’

  ‘But you didn’t do anything.’ I know she loves her son, but this is too much. She shouldn’t be here. Punished for a crime she didn’t commit. And separated from her family. Her son doesn’t even have the decency to visit.

  ‘I keep putting him on my visitor list. One day he’ll come,’ she says.

  Will Ness and Mum come? Mum would never believe the things they’re saying. But what about Ness? Could they have shown her the images they found on my computer? Forced her to confront what they think her sister is? Dread bubbles in my stomach and I try to breathe deeply and release it. Like the Mindfulness app I’d been using for insomnia outside taught me. Release. I don’t want whatever chemicals or hormones panic produces passing to the baby. I want the baby to be calm. It’s going to be okay – the police will work out who really did this. Mr Peterson will tell them my concerns. They won’t keep an innocent pregnant woman locked up. This will be over soon. Release. Release. Release.