by Jane Corry
‘I’m Joe Thomas,’ he says, letting go of my hand. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Lily Macdonald,’ I reply. My boss had told me to use both names. (‘Although you need to keep a distance,’ he’d said, ‘you don’t want to appear superior. It’s a fine lawyer/client balance.’)
Meanwhile, the look on Joe Thomas’s face is quietly admiring. I flush again, although less from fear than embarrassment this time. On the few occasions I’ve received any kind of attention, I’ve never known how to respond. Especially now, when it’s so clearly inappropriate. I can never rid myself of that constant taunting voice in my head from schooldays. Fat Lily. Big-boned. Broad. All things considered, I still can’t believe I have a wedding ring on my finger. Suddenly, I have a vision of Ed in bed on honeymoon in Italy. Warm sun streaming in through creamy-white shutters. My new husband opening his mouth, about to say something, and then turning away from me …
‘Follow me,’ says one of the officers tightly, jerking me back to the present.
Together Joe Thomas and I walk down the corridor. Past the stares. Past the man cleaning out the goldfish tank with a care that might seem touching anywhere else. And towards a room marked ‘Visits’. It’s small. The barred window looks out on to a concrete yard. Everything inside is grey: the table; the metal chairs on either side; the walls. There’s just one exception: a poster with a rainbow and the word HOPE printed under it in big purple capital letters.
‘I’ll be outside the door,’ says the officer. ‘OK with you?’ Each word is fringed with a distaste that appears to be directed towards both of us.
‘Prison officers aren’t very keen on defence solicitors,’ my boss had warned me. ‘They think you’re poaching their game. You know. Trying to get them off the hook when it’s taken blood, sweat and tears on the police and crown prosecution’s part to get them banged up in the first place.’
When he put it like that, I could see his point.
Joe Thomas now looks at me questioningly. I steel myself to look back. I might be tall, but he’s taller. ‘Visits are usually in sight of but not necessarily in hearing of a prison officer,’ my boss had added. ‘Inmates tend to reveal more if there isn’t an officer actually in the room. Prisons vary. Some don’t give you the choice.’
But this one had.
No, it’s not OK, I want to say. Please stay here with me.
‘Fine, thank you.’ My voice belongs to someone else. Someone braver. Someone more experienced.
The officer looks as though he’s going to shrug, although he doesn’t actually do so. ‘Knock on the door when you’ve finished.’
Then he leaves us together.
Alone.
4
Carla
Time was dragging slowly. It felt like ages since she’d seen the golden-haired fat woman staring at her this morning, thought Carla. But already her stomach was rumbling with hunger. Surely it must be lunchtime soon?
She stared despondently at the classroom clock. The big hand was on the ten and the small hand on the twelve. Did that mean ten minutes past twelve? Or twelve minutes past ten? Or something completely different because, as Mamma always said, ‘in this country, nothing is the same’.
Carla’s eye travelled to the desks around her. Each one had a green caterpillar, bulging with pencils, felt-tip pens and fountain pens with real ink. How she hated her own cheap plastic case with a sticky zip and just a biro inside, because that’s all Mamma could afford.
No wonder no one wanted to be her friend.
‘Carla!’
The teacher’s voice made her jump.
‘Perhaps you can tell us!’ She pointed to the word on the board. ‘What do you think this means?’
P U N C T U A L? This wasn’t a word she’d come across before, even though she sat up every night in bed, reading the Children’s Dictionary. She was on the ‘C’s already.
C for cat.
C for cold.
C for cunning.
Underneath her pillow, Carla had carefully written down the meaning of each word and drawn a little picture next to it, to remind her what it meant.
Cat was easy. Cunning was more difficult.
‘Carla!’ Teacher’s voice was sharper now. ‘Are you daydreaming again?’
There was a ripple of laughter around her. Carla flushed. ‘She doesn’t know,’ chanted a boy behind her, whose hair was the colour of carrots. Then, a bit quieter, so the teacher wouldn’t hear, ‘Hairy Carla Spagoletti doesn’t know!’
The laughter grew louder.
‘Kevin,’ said the teacher, but not in the same sharp voice she’d used earlier on Carla. ‘What did you say?’
Then she swung back, her eyes boring into Carla in the second row. She’d chosen to sit there so she could learn. Yet it was always the ones at the back who made trouble and got away with it.
‘Spell it out, Carla. What does it begin with?’
‘P.’ She knew that much. Then a ‘U’. And then …
‘Come on, Carla.’
‘Punk tool,’ she said out loud.
The squeals and shouts of laughter around her were deafening. ‘I’ve only got to C at home,’ she tried to say. It was no good. Her voice was drowned out – not just by the taunts but also by the loud bell. Immediately, there was a flurry of books being put away, feet scuffling on the ground, and the teacher saying something about a new rule during lunchtime play.
Lunch? Then it must be ten past twelve instead of twelve past ten! Carla breathed in the peace. The classroom was empty.
The boy with the carrot hair had left his green caterpillar on his desk.
It winked at her. Charlie, it said. I’m called Charlie.
Scarcely daring to breathe, she tiptoed over and stroked its fur. Then, slowly (scared-slowly), Carla placed Charlie inside her blouse. She was ‘nearly ready’ for her first bra, Mamma had said. Meanwhile, she had to make do with a vest. But things could still be hidden inside, just as Mamma often hid paper money ‘in case of emergency’.
‘You’re mine now,’ she whispered as she pulled her cardigan down over the top. ‘He doesn’t deserve to have you.’
‘What are you doing?’ A teacher poked her head round the door. ‘You should be in the canteen. Go down immediately.’
Carla chose to sit away from the rest of the children, conscious of Charlie nestling against her breast. Ignoring the usual spiteful remarks (‘Didn’t you bring your own spaghetti, Carla?’) she worked her way through a bowl of chewy meat. Finally, when it was time to go into the playground, she walked to the far end where she sat down on the tarmac and tried to make herself invisible.
Usually she’d feel upset. Left out. But not now. Not now she had her very own green caterpillar who felt so warm and comforting against her skin. ‘We’ll look after each other,’ Carla whispered.
But what will happen when they find you’ve taken me? Charlie whispered back.
‘I will think of something.’
Ouch!
The blow to her head happened so fast that Carla hardly saw the football hurtling through the air. Her head spun and her right eye didn’t feel like it belonged to her at all.
‘Are you all right? Carla, are you all right?’ The teacher’s voice was coming at her from a long way off. In the blurry distance, she could see another teacher telling off the carrot-haired boy. The one who really owned Caterpillar Charlie.
‘Kevin! You were told quite clearly about the new rule, this morning. No ball games in this part of the playground. Now look what you’ve done.’
This is our chance, hissed Charlie. Tell her you need to go home and then we can make our escape before they realize I’m missing.
Carla staggered to her feet, careful not to make a sudden movement that might dislodge her new friend. Folding her arms to hide Charlie’s shape, she managed a smile. One of her brave smiles that she practised in front of the mirror. This was a trick she had learned from Mamma. Every evening, her mother ran through a series of differe
nt looks in front of her dressing-table mirror before the man with the shiny car arrived. There was the happy smile when he was on time. There was the slightly sad smile when he arrived late. There was the smile with the nose slightly tilted when she asked if he would like another glass. And there was the smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes when she told Carla to go to bed so she and Larry could listen to some music on their own.
Right now, Carla assumed the slightly sad smile. ‘My eye hurts. I would like to go home.’
The teacher frowned as she took her to the school office. ‘We will have to ring your mother to make sure she’s in.’
Aiuto! Help! She hadn’t thought of that. ‘Our telephone, she is not working because we have not paid the bill. But Mamma, she is there.’
‘Are you sure?’
The first part was the truth. Mamma was going to tell Larry about the phone when he came round next. Then he would pay for it to work again. But the second part – about her mother being in – wasn’t true. Mamma would be at work.
But somehow, she had to get home before Charlie was discovered inside her school blouse.
‘There’s a work number here,’ announced the teacher, opening a file. ‘Let’s try, just in case.’
She’d had it now. Trembling, she listened to the conversation.
‘I see.’ The teacher put down the phone. Then she turned back to Carla, sighing. ‘It appears your mother has taken the day off. Do you know where she is?’
‘I told you. She is at home!’ The lie slid so easily into her mouth that it was as if someone had put it there. ‘I can walk back on my own,’ she added. Her good eye fixed itself on the teacher. ‘It is not far.’
‘We can’t allow that, I’m afraid. Is there anyone else we can ring? A neighbour, perhaps, who can go and fetch your mother?’
Briefly she thought of the golden lady and her husband. But she and Mamma had never even spoken to them. ‘We must keep ourselves to ourselves.’ That’s what Mamma always said. Larry wanted it that way. He wanted them for himself.
‘Yes,’ Carla said desperately. ‘My mother’s friend. Larry.’
‘You have his number?’
She shook her head.
‘Miss. Miss!’ One of the other children in her class was knocking on the door. ‘Kevin’s hit someone else now!’
There was a groan. ‘I’m coming.’ On the way, they passed the woman who helped out in her class. She was new and always wore sandals, even when it was raining. ‘Sandra, take this child home for me, will you? She’s only a couple of stops away. Her mother will be there, apparently. Kevin? Stop that right now!’
By the time she turned into her road with the sandal woman, Carla was really beginning to feel wobbly. Her eye was throbbing so badly that it was difficult to see out. There was a pain above the eyebrow which was pulsing through her head. But none of this was as bad as the certain knowledge that Mamma would not be in and that she’d then have to go back to that horrid school.
Do not worry, whispered Charlie. I will think of something.
He had better hurry up!
‘Do you know the code?’ asked sandal woman as they stopped at the main entrance to the flat. Of course. The doors swung open. But just as she’d expected, there was no answer when they knocked on number 7.
‘Maybe my mother has gone out for some milk,’ she said desperately. ‘We can let ourselves in until she comes back.’
Carla always did this, before Mamma returned from work. She’d get changed, do a bit of tidying up (because it was always a rush for Mamma in the mornings) and start to make risotto or pasta for supper. Once, when she had been really bored, she’d looked under Mamma’s bed, where she kept her ‘special things’. There she had found an envelope containing photographs. Each one showed the same young man with a hat at a funny angle and a confident smile. Something told her to put him back and not say anything. Yet every now and then when Mamma was out, she went back to take another look.
Right now, however, she could see (after fetching the chair that sat at the end of the corridor) that the key wasn’t in its usual place on the ledge above their door. Number 7. It was a lucky number, Mamma had said when they moved in. All they had to do was wait for the luck to arrive.
If only she had a key for the back door, by the rubbish behind the flats. But that spare key was for Larry so he could come in whenever he wanted and have a little rest with Mamma. Her mother joked it was like his private ground-floor entrance!
‘I can’t leave you.’ The sandal woman’s voice was all whiny, as though this was Carla’s fault. ‘We’ll have to go back.’
No. Please no. Kevin scared her. So did the other children. Charlie, do something!
And then she heard the distinct padding of heavy footsteps coming towards them.
5
Lily
APPEAL.
A PEAL.
A PEEL.
Joe Thomas is writing on a piece of paper opposite me.
I push back my hair, normally tucked behind my ears, try to ignore the smell of cabbage drifting in from the corridor outside and take another look at the three lines on the desk between Joe Thomas and me. The charming man I met an hour ago has disappeared. This man has barely uttered a word. Right now, he is putting down his pen, as if waiting for me to speak. Determined that I should play by his rules.
For anyone else it might be unnerving.
But all that practice, when I was growing up, is now standing me in good stead. When Daniel was alive (I still have to force myself to say those words), he would write words and phrases in all kinds of ways. Upside down. The wrong way round. In an odd order.
He can’t help it, my mother used to say. But I knew he could. When it was just the two of us together, my brother wrote normally. It’s a game, his eyes would say, sparkling with mischief. Join me! Us against them!
Right now I suspect that Joe Thomas is playing a game with me. It gives me an unexpected thrill of strength. He’s picked the wrong person. I know all the tricks.
‘Appeal,’ I say crisply and clearly. ‘There are several ways of interpreting it, aren’t there?’
Joe Thomas is clicking his heels together. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. ‘There certainly are. But not everyone thinks that way.’
He gives a half-laugh. A dry one. As if those who don’t think along those lines are missing something important in life.
I wonder who put up the purple HOPE poster. A well-meaning officer perhaps? Or a do-good prison visitor? Already I’m beginning to learn that you get all sorts inside.
Like my client.
I could do with a bit of hope myself. I glance down at my paperwork. ‘Let’s take “peel”. The report says that the scalding bathwater peeled the skin off your girlfriend.’
Joe Thomas’s face doesn’t flinch. Then again, what do I expect? He must be used to accusations and recriminations by now. That is what this particular prison is all about. You might also call it ‘discussion’. Psychologists talking to prisoners about why they committed their crimes. Other men in peer groups doing the same. One rapist demanding to know why another slit his mother’s throat. The latter tackling the former on why he took part in a gang-rape of a thirteen-year-old.
My boss took great pleasure in filling me in. Almost as if he wanted to frighten me. Yet now I’m here, in prison, I sense an unbidden curiosity slowly creeping over me. Why had Joe Thomas murdered his girlfriend in a scalding bath?
If indeed he had.
‘Let’s go over the prosecution’s argument at your trial,’ I say.
His face is impassive, as if we’re about to check a shopping list.
I glance down at my notes, although my gesture is more to avoid that black gaze than refresh my mind. A good lawyer needs a photographic memory; mine recalls every detail. There are times when I wish it didn’t. But right now, it’s vital.
‘You and Sarah moved in together, a few months after you met in the local pub. You were described in court, by her friends, as having a
n “up-and-down relationship”. Both her parents took the stand to say that she had told them you were controlling and was scared you would hurt her. The police report verified that Sarah actually lodged a complaint against you on one occasion for pushing her down the back-door steps and breaking her right wrist. However, she then withdrew the complaint.’
Joe Thomas gives a quick nod. ‘That’s right. She fell because she’d been drinking even though she’d promised to stop. But she initially blamed me because she didn’t want her family to know she was back off the wagon.’ He shrugs. ‘Drinkers can be terrible liars.’
Don’t I know it?
‘But a previous girlfriend made allegations against you too. Said you stalked her.’
He makes an irritated noise. ‘I wouldn’t call it stalking. I just followed her a few times to check she was going where she said she was. Anyway, she dropped her complaint.’
‘Because you threatened her?’
‘No. Because she realized I was only following her because I cared for her.’ He gives me a blank stare. ‘Anyway, I gave her the shove shortly after that.’
‘Why?’
He fixes me with an ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ look. ‘I stopped caring for her because she didn’t live by my rules.’
Talk about a control freak.
‘And then you met Sarah.’
He nods. ‘One year and two days later.’
‘You seem very certain.’
‘I’m good at numbers and dates.’
He doesn’t say this in a brash way. More as a statement which is so obvious that it barely needs mentioning.
I continue. ‘On the night of her death, your neighbours said they heard screaming.’
Joe shakes his head. ‘That Jones couple? Those two would have said anything against us. I told my lawyer that at the time. We had endless problems with them after we moved in.’
