The Kindest Thing

by Cath Staincliffe

  The judge decides to call it a day. The jury rise and wind out of the court. He gathers various folders from his table and disappears out of his own door at the back of the room. Adam catches my eye, attempts a smile. I wink at him and he screws up his mouth as if he’s fighting a guffaw. Winking might send the wrong signal but I reckon with the jury out of the way it’s not going to affect my profile. The guard approaches and we set off. I’m taken downstairs and straight out to one of the vans parked on the side street. And back to Styal.

  There are privileges with living in the houses – no official lights out, a kitchen where we can get drinks and make snacks and associate. We are not locked into our rooms at night – only the main door to the house is locked – and we are left alone then, though we can summon help by pressing the emergency call buttons. We are ‘free-flow’: trusted to move around specific parts of the prison complex without an officer escorting us. Women on the wing are escorted everywhere, their every movement checked. They have set times for exercise in their own concrete yard.

  I saw inside the wing one day, accompanying an officer who was returning one prisoner and collecting another to come and work with me on the reading programme. The rectangular building is two storeys high; the cells run the length of each wall on both levels. The metal cell doors are thickly painted in garish primary colours: red, yellow, blue and green. It reminded me of a car ferry, the same preponderance of metal and the tough wipe-clean materials. Bad behaviour could see any of us sent to the wing and subject to an unforgiving system of reward and punishment: red and green cards. Red cards are issued for the slightest infringement of rules and if you accumulate three you are put into isolation, holed up in your cell day and night. Most of the suicides occur on the wing.

  Some prisoners I never meet, the ones who are segregated in the modern block beyond the wing. These women never mingle with the general population. They are deemed either too dangerous or too vulnerable. They are escorted everywhere, many on twenty-four-hour suicide watch – they can’t even pee in private. Some are sex offenders who would be recognized. When possible the prison mixes ‘nonces’ with the general population, though, of course, the women know to lie about the crimes they’ve committed. Those who might be recognized, their faces familiar from news coverage, stay in segregation.

  There are days when the whole prison feels pitched on the edge of hysteria. Four hundred and fifty women close to explosion, half of them suffering from PMT at the same time. A vertiginous mood. Though there seems no bent to riot. When the dam breaks it is usually individuals falling off, losing their tenuous grip, feeling their nails tear and their feet flail for purchase. They’re more likely to descend into madness or take a blade to their own flesh than attack their gaolers.

  One night I woke to shouting. This was not the echoing chorus of women calling from building to building but something close and urgent, with the rhythm of violence. Before I had opened my door the alarm sounded, a deafening shrill in my ears. Someone had summoned the guards.

  On the landing Gaynor was red-faced, screaming at Stephanie, the pretty young Afro-Caribbean girl she was sleeping with. There were plenty of trysts inside and they were tolerated by the staff. Stephanie’s face was swollen, one eye puffed up and bloody. Her nose was bleeding and her nightshirt patchy with dark stains.

  ‘Teach you a fuckin’ lesson,’ Gaynor continued to shout. Her fists were smeared with blood.

  The guards burst in and we were roll checked, then sent to our rooms. There was more shouting, and banging as Gaynor was taken downstairs. From my window I watched them walking her down the hill to the wing. She was still cursing and voices began to call back in response from the black windows of the wing, the telegraph already spreading news of the attack.

  My life got a little easier without Gaynor’s jibes to deal with. I expected Stephanie to relax now her assailant was locked up, but two days later she too was shipped off to the wing. The rumours were that Stephanie had sexually assaulted a girl in the gym.

  On my wall there are two birthday cards, one from Adam and one from Jane. Nothing jokey about being over the hill or still up for it, thank God. For a while I distract myself remembering earlier birthdays, the surprises I had, the homemade gifts when Adam and Sophie were little, many of which found their way into my workshop when I couldn’t bear to throw them away. The time I’d been working away and come home to find the house full of flowers and a birthday tree (a yucca) hung with presents.

  Sophie turned sixteen this February. I wanted to send her a present. In prison I am only allowed to order things from the Argos catalogue. I pored over the pages wondering what her grandparents would get her, wondering if she had bought herself any of the things that I was considering. Although I have some money here, earnings from my job, they don’t amount to much at 15p a session. I asked Jane to get Sophie’s present for me – I’d try to pay her for it later. Our bank accounts had been frozen. Jane has had to go to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau to help her sort things out with the bank so our direct debits continue to be paid and money made available from our savings for the children. The bank’s not really geared up for this sort of thing – one account holder dead and the other on remand. Not what’s expected of their platinum reserve customers.

  I got Sophie a camera, a digital SLR. She was talking about doing photography at A level. There was a workshop in the prison stocked with graphic materials and computers where we could make cards and calendars. I designed a card and sent it to Jane to include with the present.

  I didn’t hear whether Sophie liked the camera. Would she shun it because it had come from me? I didn’t probe Adam when he visited. He sees her a couple of times a week but he finds it very difficult, and if I mention her there is always a flash of resentment in his eyes.

  I am lost in this chasm between Sophie and me. A trench so wide, so deep, filled with choppy water, sunken rocks. Her insistence on justice is familiar. When she was twelve I mistakenly accused her and Adam of running up the phone bill, and told them they couldn’t make calls to their friends, especially not to the mobile numbers that cost so much more. Sophie’s face hardened. She’d stuck out her hand for the bill and disappeared. She returned later and she had highlighted the calls she made. The cost of them was negligible. It was all down to Adam. She had been furious at the unfairness of my accusation. My paltry ‘Sorry’ and my backtracking weren’t enough. She refused to speak to me for days.

  And now here we are estranged. Two pinprick figures either side of a canyon. I ache for the sight of her face turning my way, the break of her smile, the tune of her laughter, the brief weight of her embrace.

  Tonight I lie awake spinning headlines and worrying about the children. When I sleep I dream of sinking sand: it is dark and I am out alone in a vast estuary, being sucked under, my legs leaden in the mud, my nostrils filling with the cold, gritty stuff until my lungs crave breath and my heart climbs into my throat.

  Chapter Eleven

  The jury file in and I watch the parade as they walk through the court to their seats. Mousy moves with her eyes cast down, her shoulders rounded; Dolly has strappy shoes, which cause her to wobble a little; the Prof strides along and the Callow Youth bobs after him. The Cook and the Artist and the Sailor take their places in the second row. The only woman on this row is young and trim. She wears her hair scraped back into a ponytail and she has lovely skin – either that or she’s a makeup wizard. She reminds me of a PA we had at the big interior design firm so I’ll call her PA. Hilda and Flo settle in on the back row, sandwiched between the only black juror and an overweight woman with ginger hair. The man wears a crisp blue shirt and a suit and has been following the proceedings with an intent and unchanging expression. He looks a bit flash – estate agent or media man, perhaps? Yes, Media Man. Earning plenty, I guess, with a canal-side apartment, a beautiful girlfriend and all the latest gadgets.

  At the other end of the row, the last juror couldn’t be more different from him. She’s proba
bly in her early twenties, her hair is long and she wears an Alice band. Alice has a wide, freckled face and her large size is emphasized by the tight clothes she wears. She smiles a lot, laughs a lot, nods as if she agrees with whoever’s speaking.

  When they go home at night, these twelve peers of mine, do they confide in anyone? Does any of them have an audience clustered round the family tea-table, clinging to their every word, or are they alone with their thoughts from the day, or oblivious, shrugging off my case with their courtroom clothes and heading out to see friends?

  The court usher calls Sophie Draper and my bowels turn to water. I would give anything to stop this, to shield her from the amphitheatre. I had asked Latimer if he would refrain from cross-examining her. He gave me a pitying smile, murmured some words of sympathy and assured me he would be gentle with her. There would be nothing to gain if the jury witnessed him ripping into a tender sixteen-year-old.

  Sophie had the option of giving evidence by video link but only the real McCoy would do for my girl. My jaw is clamped so tight I think my teeth will shatter. Saliva clogs my throat.

  She comes in and I am so happy to see her. How daft is that? My maternal instincts kick in and override all other considerations. She is here, my girl is here. It is almost six months since I have seen her. That was at Neil’s funeral. This flush of pleasure, the quickening of my heart, is swiftly replaced by a bitter sadness, an impotent desire to protect her.

  She steps into the witness box and tucks her hair behind her ears. A gesture that betrays her youth. The sympathy emanating from the jury box is almost palpable. I wonder if any of them have children, teenagers, and daughters. Can they make sense of this rift?

  Sophie’s hair is different, longer, layered, the highlights bolder. By this time of year her hair has usually darkened to the colour of toffee. She wears clothes I don’t recognize: a plain cornflower blue long-sleeved top, black boot-cut trousers. Who went with her to buy them? A wave of jealousy grips my neck. Did Briony Webber have a hand in it? Counselling her witnesses as to what apparel would best create the right image? The prospect that Sophie and I might never do these things together again, shopping, ordering things online, that she will never wander into my room and ask me if she can borrow my eyeliner or if she should put her hair up or leave it down, kicks me in the belly.

  All I have lost.

  Sophie does not look at me; she does not look at her brother in the gallery. She concentrates on Miss Webber and the jury.

  ‘You are Sophie Draper?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sophie’s voice is small but not timid.

  Neil chose the name Sophie. I wanted to call her Rachel but he wasn’t keen. He’d gone out with a girl called Rachel at school; she’d been horribly clingy when he broke up with her. All those years later the name still conjured her up. So we settled on Sophie. Adam had my surname and we gave Sophie Neil’s. We had no plan for how we would name a third child.

  Sophie affirms, which I’m relieved about. She’d had a religious phase as a younger teen and challenged Neil and me when we made any anti-religious comments. I think I’d been worrying that staying with Veronica might have sent her looking for comfort in God.

  ‘You are the daughter of Neil Draper and Deborah Shelley?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And on the twenty-fourth of June, nine days after your father’s death, you made a phone call to the police?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘What did you tell the police?’

  My throat is tight and there’s a burning around my ears. I concentrate on my breathing, taking air in slowly through my nose.

  ‘That I thought my mum had something to do with my dad dying.’

  There are gasps and sharp intakes of breath from around the court. Dolly puts her hand over her mouth in shock. Sophie blinks, tightens her lips with resolve.

  ‘Please can you tell us what happened on the afternoon of June the fifteenth?’

  ‘I was on my way home from school when Mum rang me, to tell me Dad had died.’

  ‘Were you surprised?’

  ‘Yes, he’d been fine that morning.’ There are tears in her voice and my heart rips. Resentment ripples through me. I want to leap across the space and gag Miss Webber, free Sophie from the ordeal.

  ‘You’d seen him earlier in the day?’

  ‘I said goodbye before school.’

  ‘You got the phone call. What did you do next?’

  Her voice is firmer. ‘I went home. Mum was there and we went upstairs.’

  ‘You saw your father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Callow Youth is following Sophie’s testimony carefully. Perhaps he relates to her because she’s closer to his age than any of the other witnesses. And she’s gorgeous, of course.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I asked her if we could do anything, like the kiss of life and she said it was too late. There was an ambulance coming. Then I rang Grandma and Grandpa to tell them.’

  ‘Your mother hadn’t called them?’

  ‘No.’

  I am neglect on legs.

  ‘And your brother?’

  ‘She said his phone was off.’

  I sense rather than see Adam flinch. It had been another few hours before he had come barrelling home to find the sky had fallen. His absence he saw as another failure to carry with him, another brick in the basket.

  ‘How did your mother appear?’

  ‘A bit upset.’

  ‘She was crying?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything about events that day?’

  ‘Just that she had gone upstairs and couldn’t wake him.’

  ‘Nine days later you called the police. You told them you suspected your mother of involvement in your father’s death. Why did you think that?’

  ‘Well, he died really suddenly. He was okay when I went to school. They’d told us about MND and what would happen and it wasn’t like that at all.’

  ‘Was that the only reason?’

  ‘No. I knew Mum had been looking on the Internet at sites about assisted suicide, euthanasia.’

  ‘How did you know this?’

  ‘She never deletes her browsing history.’

  Flo narrows her eyes; perhaps she’s not a silver surfer. But Miss Webber is prepared for this and has a follow-up question. ‘So when you went on the computer you could see a list of previous websites that had been visited?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps your father had been looking them up?’

  Not unless he’d regained the use of his legs, got himself down there without help.

  ‘It’s her computer – it’s a Mac for her work. He didn’t really go on it.’

  ‘And was there anything else that alerted your suspicions?’

  Sophie swallows. She licks her lips. My hands hurt: my fists are bunched, my nails cutting into my palms. I uncurl them, clasp my hands tight together.

  ‘Well, when I first got back and I wanted to know if we could do anything I asked her if she had tried the breathing space kit – I thought maybe that might help. She just said it was too late, but later when I went to look for the breathing space kit I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘You knew where it was usually kept?’

  ‘Yes, in the kitchen, in the middle cupboard. We all knew where it was and what to do if Dad was choking or couldn’t breathe.’

  ‘And this kit was missing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know what drugs it contained?’

  ‘It was morphine, I think, and something else, a sedative but I don’t know what it was called.’

  Midazolam. We hadn’t used that. If Neil had taken it as well, might the end have been different? My mind veers away from the memory.

  ‘What did you think had happened to the kit?’

  ‘I thought she’d hidden it, my mum.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’d given him the drugs but she didn’t want anyone to know.’ Her ans
wer is fluent, logical.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened after you phoned the police?’

  ‘They wanted to talk to me in person.’

  ‘And you agreed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You made a visit to the police station the following day?’

  My mind flew back, dipping around dates and memories. Ten days after – she’d have still been at home, wouldn’t she? But everything became hazy in those days after Neil’s death. What had she told me? That she was going into school? I couldn’t recall.

  ‘You spoke to the police and they asked you if you would be prepared to make a statement?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They asked you whether you would be prepared to testify, if the case came to court?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You agreed to those requests. You are here today. Can you tell the jury why you decided to help the police?’

  ‘It was the right thing to do.’ She is simple in her certainty, steadfast. My Antigone. I could use exactly the same words in my own defence – except I have to pretend that what I did was very much the wrong thing. And as for Antigone, after defying the authorities to honour her dead brother with a burial she was walled up and hanged herself.

  ‘Sophie, can you tell us how your mother seemed in the months leading up to June last year?’

  Sophie hesitates a moment. I don’t think she’s unsure. I think she’s choosing her words carefully. ‘The same as usual.’

  ‘Did she complain of strain or stress?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she seem withdrawn or depressed?’

  ‘No.’

  We are getting to the heart of the matter. This is what the trial pivots around – was I off my trolley or not? Ms Gleason summed it up: battle of the shrinks. And Sophie is the opener, the first line of attack who may be sacrificed but serves to expose chinks in the enemy’s line, root out weaknesses and gaps, to illuminate the pattern for the next assault.

  ‘Had she exhibited any signs of anxiety, any panic attacks?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did your mother behave in any way that made you think she was mentally ill?’