Sweets From Morocco

by Jo Verity

  Lying in her hospital bed, she’d kidded herself that a spell in prison would be fascinating. It wasn’t. She was trapped in a mind-numbing environment, surrounded by damaged people, every minute governed by dehumanising regulations. Not so different from hospital but without the option to discharge herself.

  The inmates lived for ‘association’, the hour each evening when they were herded into the hall and expected to play cards or pool or table tennis. Tessa found the whole thing intolerable. She didn’t want to ‘associate’ with any of these women. They had no idea what she was about, nor did she wish to tell them. She was civil – foolish to be otherwise – but she steered clear of them, using ‘association time’ to shower and wash her hair, occupying herself until she could return to the cell. She wasn’t here to win friends or play ping-pong.

  Each week, they were allowed to borrow two books from the library and Tessa set out to tackle the authors that she’d spent years pretending that she’d read. Tolstoy. Dickens. Victor Hugo. George Eliot. But she found herself reading and re-reading the same pages, forgetting who the characters were and why she should care about them.

  She had ideas for short stories but when she came to shape them they fell to pieces.

  She was permanently tired yet found it hard to get to sleep, rousing whenever Sandra stirred overhead.

  Often, and for no reason, she wept.

  ‘The girl before you lost it a few times.’ Sandra said. She was bending over a jigsaw puzzle, quietly but doggedly occupying the table. ‘She kept saying the walls were coming in on her. In the end she taped the tubes out of two loo rolls together. She spent most of ‘bang up’ standing at the window, peering through them, like they were binoculars.’

  ‘What was she looking at?’ Tessa asked. ‘There’s nothing to see out there.’

  Sandra shrugged. ‘I’m just telling you what she did.’

  Time and again, Tessa returned to the last conversation she’d had with her sister-in-law. Had anyone else told her to leave Lewis alone, she would assume they were jealous of their closeness. But she’d been warned off by the Ice Maiden, the woman who had left Lewis to sort his own life out and who had stayed away until he did. It galled her to admit it but Kirsty had put Lewis’s needs ahead of her own desires. Screw Kirsty Ross. She could be equally resolute. She would set Lewis free. If it turned out to be a catastrophe, he would find his way back to her somehow.

  She wrote to him.

  Dear Lewis,

  You are not to come here. There’s nothing to be gained and it will only make it harder for me. I know you wouldn’t want to do that. I also know you’ll fret about me. You mustn’t. I’m not going to phone but I will write once a month so that you know I’m OK. I don’t want to discuss the past or the future.

  Love,

  Tessa

  Of course Lewis did come and although she was within her rights to refuse his visit she didn’t have the heart to do so. Beforehand, she was searched, given an orange tabard to wear over her navy blue tracksuit and allocated a numbered table at which she was to receive her visitor. It was her first glimpse of the visiting area – a utilitarian room with two dozen small tables arranged in rows. The tables were fixed to the floor, an orange plastic chair on one side, two blue chairs opposite. Inmates took their seats and waited in silence. At two-thirty the double doors opened and the visitors surged in. Husbands, lovers, children, friends. And her brother.

  He came towards her, picking his way between the tables, systematically checking the numbers stencilled on them.

  ‘You’ve got to sit on a blue chair, Lewis.’ She didn’t look directly at him, knowing that he was crying. ‘Orange is for the baddies.’

  He blew his nose and forced a smile. ‘Hello, Tessa.’ He looked confused and embarrassed, as if he’d walked into a room and found her naked. ‘I don’t know what to say. What I’m supposed to do.’ He dipped his head and she saw a tear drip off the end of his nose. ‘I can’t bear to see you like this.’ He stifled a sob. ‘God, I’m useless.’

  ‘See,’ she whispered gently, ‘you feel dreadful, I feel dreadful. I tried to tell you that there’s no point in coming.’

  ‘But I can’t not come,’ he said.

  ‘Why? What difference will it make if you come or not?’

  ‘It’ll make a difference to me,’ he whispered.

  ‘Trust you to be selfish.’

  She looked at his hands, the nails flat and square-ish like her own. This was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do.

  ‘From now on I’m going to refuse visitors.’ She held his gaze. ‘I mean it. Please go home to Kirsty. Get on with your lives. Do it for me.’ She smiled and sat up very straight. ‘It’s really not so bad in here. I’ve got a roof over my head and three meals a day. They don’t even make us sew mailbags.’

  He went to say something but then shook his head, overcome with tears.

  Her refusal to see visitors seemed to bother those in charge. Both the chaplain and the social worker sent notes. Did she want to take confession or communion? Would it help to talk to someone? Would it help to pray with someone?

  ‘Holy Joes and do-gooders. They can all fuck off,’ she snapped.

  ‘Everyone gets down,’ Sandra said. ‘Perhaps a chat would do you good.’

  ‘I don’t want to be “done good”. It’s not what I’m here for.’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  She wrote to Lewis on the first day of each month. They were notes rather than letters – disjointed lists of trivialities. She was determined not to upset him with the details of her incarceration so even filling a page was difficult.

  Dearest Lewis,

  Another month has flown by. Did you catch the programme about the Women’s Land Army? (Radio 4 – last Tuesday) Wonderful.

  I’m currently reading my way through the library’s collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. Conan Doyle isn’t generally thought of as a humorist but they make me smile. Holmes is such a pompous prick and Watson such a dullard.

  I’m feeling very well and making sure I get plenty of exercise while the weather lasts. My ankle is almost back to normal.

  I hope everything is well with you.

  Love, as ever,

  Tessa

  When the Tuesday mail appeared under the cell door, there was always an envelope from Lewis. He never missed a week and his letters ran to several pages. He told her the amusing things his pupils got up to; filled her in on the wildlife that visited the garden; grumbled about the difficulty he was having in finding a chimney sweep or a reliable plumber. It was obvious that he, too, was censoring his life, leaving out anything that might draw attention to her circumstances.

  She’d been at Downham for a year when Jay Costello wrote – there was no mistaking his bold handwriting – but she tore the envelope into small pieces without opening it. He had no right to impose his words and thoughts on her.

  The exercise yard that served the wing was thirty-seven paces long and twenty-one paces wide. She checked it every afternoon. Once when she was out there a helium balloon, shaped like a puckered heart, appeared and drifted idly overhead. Dozens of arms reached up, snatching at the dangling string. A scuffle broke out and while the rest of them pushed and shoved, Tessa stood to one side, watching the balloon rise over the rooftop, willing it away.

  Sandra’s parole came through. On the morning of her release, Sandra gave Tessa half a bottle of shampoo and a jar of pink nail varnish. They parted with a hug and a mumbled ‘you take care’. Tessa was relieved that there was no mention of keeping in touch.

  By lights-out, Tessa had a new cellmate.

  Jackie had been to prison twice before. This time it was for attacking an ex-boyfriend. She flaunted her crime like a badge of honour, filling the cell with anger and vulgarity, leaving Tessa nowhere to go except inside her own head.

  I attacked a lover, too. What d’you think of that? I stabbed him then watched his blood spill onto the floor. They never came looking for me. Why
was that?

  Isn’t it weird? No one ever caught us together. I never met his friends or went to hear his band. I’ve got nothing – nothing at all – to show for it. It doesn’t add up. Unless I was fucking a ghost. Did I murder a ghost?

  I stabbed a man then watched his life blood oozing onto the kitchen floor. I did. Didn’t I?

  Around and around it went. There was nowhere else for it to go.

  There was little to see from the cell window, only the four-storey buildings surrounding the exercise yard.

  But if she looked up…

  On sunny days aeroplanes glinted overhead, stringing white highways across the sky. There were clouds to study. Nimbus. Cumulonimbus. Cirrus. Stratus. She’d learned them all in geography. And the weather that went with them. The beautiful names had lodged in her memory, but what difference did it make whether it rained or not? There were birds. Dim-witted pigeons squatted on the prison rooftops but above them gulls and crows free-wheeled. Higher still, tiny somethings – could they be swifts? – spiralled up and up.

  Sometimes, when she was sure that Jackie was asleep, Tessa stood at the window, letting the moon and stars and chasing clouds remind her that none of this was important.

  *

  Monotony stifled Downham in grey fog, infiltrating her brain, clogging her thoughts, damping her imagination like the soft pedal on a piano. She was de-sensitised, as if she were under an anaesthetic, floating further and further away. Time got out of kilter. Monday jumped to Wednesday; September to November; one year to the next. Time was passing and that was all that mattered.

  Dear Lewis

  This is the last time I shall be writing to you from Downham. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have an address and know what I’m doing. I have several ideas.

  Thank you for every one of your wonderful letters.

  Love, as ever,

  Tess x

  You mustn’t worry about me or this whole business will have been pointless.

  At eight-fifteen on a bright June morning, Tessa stood on the pavement with four other women. Unlike them, there was no one waiting to meet her, and for that she was grateful. Her shoulder-length hair was heavily streaked with grey. She wore her own clothes but they seemed to be too big and her shoes pinched across the instep. As she walked towards the bus stop, somebody shouted ‘Good luck, love,’ but she didn’t look back.

  There was music playing in the café – something South-American-sounding, with a lazy beat.

  Tessa walked towards the counter, past the sofa where the young man was reading the paper; past the woman breast-feeding her baby; past the two middle-aged women who were laughing loudly.

  The man tending the coffee machine half-turned towards her. ‘If you’d like to take a seat, Madam, someone will take your order.’

  Smile. ‘Thank you.’

  She chose a table towards the back of the room. Dipping into her jacket pocket, she brought out a handful of change, turning it over as if she were a tourist fathoming out the local currency.

  A waitress – young, fair-haired, middle-European perhaps – came to the table. ‘What can I get you?’

  Deep breath and smile. ‘A small white coffee, please.’

  A lad came in, whistling, carrying a tray of bread rolls; a scarlet-lipped woman in a black suit left an order for sandwiches; the mother sang to her baby. All so sure of themselves and what they were doing.

  The waitress brought the coffee. It came in a white china cup, a cellophane-wrapped biscuit resting in the saucer alongside a shining spoon.

  Tessa ran her finger around the rim of the cup. ‘I haven’t drunk out of a china cup in three years.’

  The girl smiled and nodded, clearly thinking that she had misunderstood.

  X

  1996

  Chapter 39

  Lewis dumped his briefcase on the bottom stair and scooped the letters off the doormat. Loosening his tie, he went through to the kitchen. While the kettle boiled he flicked through the mail. A postcard from a colleague, a bank statement, the usual junk mail, and a letter from Tessa.

  He hadn’t heard from his sister for several months and the sight of her untidy scrawl both cheered and alarmed him. Balancing the white envelope on the palm of his hand, he stared at it, as if its weight or the angle of the stamp might give a clue to its contents. If Kirsty were there she’d say, For heavens sake just open it. Why d’you always try to guess what’s in a letter? The answer was simple. He was bracing himself for the worst as he always did whenever he received Tessa’s communications.

  He slipped a knife under the flap, slicing cleanly along the fold and pulling out a single sheet of paper. Tessa had moved. She was still in Birmingham but gave no explanation for moving – the third time in two years. Her new address was printed in block capitals at the top of the page. As usual there was no phone number. She’d added a couple of lines. Not much to report apart from the new address. I’m working at Boots now – better pay and it smells nice. I’ll keep in touch. Much love.

  When she was discharged from prison she’d moved to Birmingham. ‘Why?’ he’d asked when she phoned to let him know. ‘Why not?’ she’d replied. ‘And Lewis, can you do something for me? It’s important.’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Can you leave me to get on with it?’

  He’d done as she’d asked because he hadn’t known what else to do.

  He’d broken his word only once. His daughters had spent a week in Yorkshire and, having delivered them back to Stafford, he’d continued down the M6 to Birmingham. He’d planned the detour weeks earlier but only told Kirsty the day before, making out that it was a spur of the moment idea. Tessa’s address led him to a drab semi, located off a dual carriageway. The row of doorbells indicated that the house was divided into flats. He checked the names and found Swinburne, buzzing several times before Tessa, thin and pale faced, opened the door. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. Let’s go to the pub. Hang on while I get my coat.’ He’d kept the conversation light, describing the changes they’d made to the garden and telling her about their forthcoming trip to visit Kirsty’s mother in Scotland. She hadn’t said much but drank three glasses of white wine to his pint of shandy. After an hour she said that she had to go, adding, ‘You’re not to worry about me. And if you promise not to come here again, I’ll promise to write regularly.’ ‘You don’t expect me to fall for that again?’ he asked. ‘Don’t pressurise me, Lewis. I’ve said I’ll write and I will.’

  He’d re-run the moment of their meeting dozens of times since but he still had no idea whether she’d been pleased to see him.

  When they did come, her letters told him nothing beyond the essentials. She was okay; had changed her job; had moved again. Once in a while – most recently, his birthday – she phoned. ‘Happy birthday, Lewis. Another year gone. Don’t panic, you’ll always be my baby brother.’ Her calls were brief and always from a payphone. He never succeeded in getting much out of her. When he tried ringing back, she didn’t pick up.

  Lewis wrote to her on the first Sunday of every month, regardless of whether he heard from her or not, printing his name and address on the back of each envelope. At least a neighbour would know who to contact in an emergency.

  The forecast was for a blistering weekend.

  ‘Anything you fancy doing?’ Lewis asked.

  Kirsty grimaced. ‘I can’t face sitting in a hot car. Let’s stay here. We could invite the neighbours round for a barbecue or something.’

  ‘We don’t have a barbecue,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Phew. The perfect get-out.’

  In the end, equipped with sunhats, books and portable radio for the Test score, they set up their deckchairs in a shaded corner of the garden. It was an idyllic day, roses scenting the air, dabs of pure white cloud decorating the sky, Kirsty alongside him deep in her novel.

  Lewis closed his eyes.

  He’d lost Kirsty once but she’d given him a second chance. They’d come close to fouling up again after the misc
arriages. Then they’d drifted further apart when she took over the York office and buried herself in the job as if, having failed to prove her womanhood, she needed to prove herself better than any man.

  His childhood had been dominated by women. Tessa. His mother. Gran. Mrs Channing. They weren’t all strong women but each of them had exerted significant influence over him. What if he’d grown up with a brother as well as a sister? It would have made him the ‘middle-of-three’ as Tessa had once reminded him. Would it also have made him more self-reliant?

  His was labelled ‘the lucky generation’. No wars. No rationing. Grammar schools. University grants. Free health care. An era of unlimited opportunity. But mightn’t he be a stronger person had it not been handed him on a plate?

  When he was a lad, he must have peered into the future but he had no recollection of what he’d seen there. It wouldn’t have been a life lived in a haze of chalk dust, one failed marriage, two daughters whom he barely knew and a notorious sister.

  He’d suffered a dull but ever present ache since Tessa had cut herself off from him but he said nothing to Kirsty. Recently, something had eased between him and his wife and he welcomed the change. These days she rarely stayed late at the office, getting home in good time for them to eat supper together. At weekends, they drove to Whitby and strolled along the beach or played the machines in the penny arcades on Scarborough sea front. They made love, nothing ambitious but something they hadn’t done for months. They were drawing closer again and, in order not to jeopardise this, he kept his pain to himself.

  ‘Penny for them.’

  He opened his eyes, squinting against the sunlight. Kirsty was coming across the lawn, carrying two glasses of squash.