by Jane Corry
‘Recall can be affected after damage like hers.’ That’s what she’d overheard a doctor saying to Friday Mum. ‘So she may not have any long-term memories.’ Friday Mum had looked sadder than the mother on Kitty’s wooden picture board; the one the staff had given her to point at the drawings with her good hand so she could communicate. Hah! More like guess what she was trying to say. They were always getting it wrong.
Education classes were meant to help. She was pretending to learn her alphabet again, although she already knew it. In fact, it was good fun to give the letters new meanings. M was for the Memory she’d bloody well gone and ‘lost’. ‘Look in the wardrobe,’ Kitty sometimes joked. ‘Maybe it’s there.’ But no one laughed because they couldn’t understand her.
A was for the Accident she’d had. ‘What kind of accident?’ she would ask the staff over and over again.
But no one ever told her. ‘Poor Kitty,’ they would say instead. ‘All she can do is babble.’
If only they knew what was going on in her head!
J was for James. That was her surname. Or, at least, that’s what it said on her bedroom door along with the list of tablets she had to be given every day. F was for Frontal and L was for Lobes. Kitty knew what Frontal Lobes were from the conversation the doctor had had with Friday Mum. They were the ‘part of the brain that’s responsible for coordination and mood swings and a great deal more’.
Perhaps the ‘great deal more’ included the bits that Kitty couldn’t get out of her mouth. She didn’t have a speech impediment, the doctor had explained to Friday Mum, as if Kitty wasn’t there. Her brain just wouldn’t translate her thoughts into words. ‘Some brain injuries make patients swear, even if they weren’t habitual swearers before. Of course, as Kitty doesn’t talk, it’s hard for us to know exactly what’s going on in her mind.’
‘Put your needles away now, everyone.’
The carers started tucking in wheelchair blankets and making clucking noises as though they were a brood of bloody hens. ‘Some of us,’ Kitty wanted to scream, ‘used to be like you once.’
Not everyone, of course. Duncan with the plain round glasses had been born like this. Deprived of oxygen during birth. Could speak after a fashion but was ‘mentally unpredictable’. Hospital notes ‘gone missing’. Blah, blah, blah. Usual story. They heard it all here. Except the most important story. Like what had happened to her.
‘Ready for lunch now, Kitty?’ said the girl bending over her. She had a straight blonde fringe that swung when she spoke.
‘Of course I am, you stupid cow.’
‘Thought you might be!’
Hah! If this girl could understand what she was saying, she wouldn’t be so madly enthusiastic, clapping her hands together as if Kitty had come out with something really clever.
‘What are you pointing to on your picture board? A cow! That’s nice. Is that one of your favourite animals?’
‘She’s got a thing for cows,’ chirped one of the carers. ‘Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to tell us something. But it all comes out like baby babble.’
Try being in her shoes! Then they’d be more understanding. Mind you, they wouldn’t like being in these ugly black lace-ups they put her in. In the back of her mind, there was the distant memory of a pair of red high heels. So high that they made her fall over.
‘What else do you like on your board, Kitty?’
Hair! That’s what she would like. Blonde hair. Not like her own dark curls.
‘Ouch, Kitty. You’re hurting me.’
‘I’ll help. She’s got a strong grip, that one. Let go of poor Barbara’s fringe.’
Kitty felt the fingers on her good hand being prised off, one by one. That was another thing about her brain. It could be happy one minute. Sad the next. Bad. Then good. Maybe she shouldn’t have grabbed that girl’s fringe like that. She was young. From the local sixth-form college. Wanted to be a social worker so she was doing ‘voluntary work here, once a week’. Or so Kitty had heard her tell Very Thin Carer.
Voluntary work. Fancy! She wouldn’t mind doing something like that if she ever got better. In your bloody dreams, Kitty told herself.
How she loved those dreams! In them, she could run. Ride a bike. Do those bloody laces up. Chase the seagulls which were always splattering on the windows. (‘It’s good luck!’ one of the more irritating carers would declare cheerily every time it happened.) Sometimes, she could actually sing, although she hadn’t had the singing dream for a while now.
‘You’re not really a cow,’ Kitty babbled, pointing to the picture and shaking her head. Except it went up and down instead of side to side. Then, in a further bid to say sorry, she gave the straight-fringed girl one of her best, biggest, sloppiest smiles. She’d learned that from Dawn. It was what she did best, apart from peeing. No matter what went wrong for Dawn – and heaven knows, there’d been quite a lot – she always wore that goofy smile.
‘I’m sure she’s trying to tell me something.’
‘I used to think that when I started,’ said the other carer. ‘It’s natural. But you can’t always fix people. Not the ones in here. Sad, I know. Just life, I suppose. Now let’s get a move on, shall we? It’s fishcakes today.’
Yummy! Mealtime again. As her roommate Margaret said, there weren’t many pleasures that came three times a day.
‘Come along now.’ Straight Fringe was steering the chair in a rather haphazard fashion down the corridor towards the canteen.
‘Be careful,’ Kitty told her. ‘And buck up or we’ll get small portions. They always do that when you’re late.’
‘I don’t know what you’re saying but it sounds like you know what you’re talking about, Kitty. And that’s something, isn’t it?’
Nearly there now! No thanks to Straight Fringe here, who’d almost collided with Dawn.
‘Morning, Kitty!’
Now what? The supervisor was standing at the door of the canteen. Bossy Supervisor, Kitty called her. Do this. Do that.
‘Bugger off!’
Sometimes it was quite funny to say things that no one else understood.
‘You look nice today, don’t you?’
This old thing? Kitty glanced down at her blue jeans with an elasticated waist and baggy red sweatshirt that the carer had dressed her in that morning. She shared some of her clothes with Dawn who was also a size 18. Bloody cutbacks again. How she hated wearing Dawn’s stuff! They always smelt of pee no matter how often they were washed. ‘Guess what, Kitty. I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘I don’t want any bloody surprise. I want my fishcake.’
‘You have a visitor!’
No way. Friday Mum came on Fridays. Today was Tuesday. T for Tuesday. They’d done that in Word Play this morning before the ‘Knit one, purl one’ shit. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see who it is.’ Bossy Supervisor didn’t add a question mark to her sentence. It was an order.
‘Can’t she have her dinner before seeing her visitor?’ said Straight Fringe. ‘She’s nibbling her knuckles. Looks like she’s hungry.’
Kitty could have kissed her. ‘Thank you, thank you. I’m sorry I pulled your hair.’
‘We can keep her meal warm. Bring her this way. And do try to keep her chair straight, will you?’
Zig, zag. Zig, zag. Right. Left. Along the scuffed wooden floor. Into Bossy Supervisor’s office with the view over the lawn, which was ‘out of bounds to wheelchair users’. (Once, Kitty had tried to go out there – she could just about wheel herself with her one-arm-drive chair when she wanted to – but then she’d got stuck on the grass and everyone had laughed at her. That had made her feel silly.)
Right now, the first thing Kitty saw of her visitor was a pair of brown shoes. They had little holes in them. Like a pattern. When you had to sit all the time, you always saw the low things first. Then you went upwards. Grey trousers. Pink and white shirt. Navy blue jacket. Silver buttons. Round, flabby face. A mouth that smiled. Eyes that didn’t.
‘Hello, Ki
tty. I’m sorry it’s been so long. But you do remember me, don’t you?’
Kitty’s good arm began to beat on the side of the chair. Her head knocked forward on her chest. She could taste froth on her lips.
‘Don’t spit at me,’ spluttered Bossy Supervisor.
‘GET ME OUT OF HERE.’
Suddenly the chair swivelled round. They were speeding out of the office. Along the corridor. Straight Fringe was helping her escape!
Just for a minute, Kitty was running. Or maybe she was actually cycling. No. Riding a horse. All these images flashed across her mind, one after the other as if she was trying them out for size.
And then they stopped.
3
September 2016
Alison
‘So, why exactly do you want to work in a prison?’ asks the man with metallic glasses. He’s lean and thin with rodent-like features, a sceptical look about his face and black eyebrows which rise and fall as he speaks. Seems a bit small and wiry for a prison governor to me, but then again, he’s the first one I’ve met.
Why do I want to work in a prison? Simple. I don’t. This place terrifies me. Has done from the minute I stopped the car at the security gates this morning to give my name and purpose. ‘Alison Baker. Interview with the governor.’
But, of course, I can’t tell my interviewer the truth. ‘I feel I can contribute something,’ I hear myself say. How lame does that sound?
The right eyebrow rises, leaving the left behind. The effect is so disconcerting that I almost miss what he says next. ‘So do most artists. But why, Miss Baker, should we pick you instead of the many other applicants whom we are seeing this week?’
Why, indeed? Because, if it hadn’t been for my art, I might have died too after the accident. Before that sunny July morning, I had been what my teachers called ‘an academic’. I could have done anything I wanted – or so they said. Alison, the bright sister. Good at maths and English, though the two aren’t always easy bedfellows. Almost fluent in French. A natural scientist.
Art had always been my sister’s forte. The subject for those who ‘weren’t so capable’ at traditional subjects. A waste of time for academics like me. At least, that’s how my school had seen it when I’d declared my intention to go to art school instead of university.
My mind goes back to the weeks after the accident and the funeral when my mother and I had to sort out my sister’s things. On impulse, I’d opened her paint box and taken out the tube marked TURQUOISE. Her favourite colour. My hand had picked up her paintbrush. It seemed to flow naturally across the page, as though she were guiding it. ‘I didn’t realize you could paint too,’ Mum had whispered. Neither had I.
But this was my secret. Not something I could share with a stranger. And certainly not a prison governor.
‘I’ve had experience in various unusual artistic mediums,’ I say instead. ‘Like stained glass.’
‘We have to avoid dangerous materials.’ This comment comes from the other man in the room. One of the prison psychologists, according to his introduction. I only hope he can’t read my mind. ‘I have to emphasize that many of our offenders have had severe mental problems. Some are psychopathic, although their behaviour is under control with medication. None are considered to be high-risk any longer, which is why they are in an open prison. But we still have to be careful. Workshops using glass would be out of the question.’
‘I am also a specialist in watercolours,’ I continue. My hands are beginning to sweat. The walls are closing in on me. Did he feel that way when they first took him in? I hope so.
‘Can you do portraits?’
‘Yes,’ I say, without adding that, actually, I don’t care for them. You have to get into someone’s soul to make it really work. And I definitely don’t want to go there.
‘From a therapeutic point of view, we believe that portraits can help people take another look at themselves,’ the psychologist says in a gentler voice. ‘It’s one of the reasons we want an artist in residence.’
I had wondered. Why should someone who’s committed a crime be treated to art lessons? Surely prisoners ought to do something deeply unpleasant while serving time.
Perhaps the governor can see the doubt on my face. ‘Increasing self-confidence can lower the risk of reoffending.’ His words carry a challenging edge, as if defending the strategy.
‘I can understand that.’ My voice doesn’t sound as though it’s lying. But then again, I’ve had practice. As I speak, a burst of sunlight suddenly streams in through the window like a dusty rainbow. For a few seconds I am blinded. Then it disappears and the room goes darker.
‘Would you like to ask any questions, Miss Baker?’
I clear my throat nervously. ‘Would I hold my art sessions in the huts outside?’
‘Only in the Education section. The other cabins are for admin. And some are where the men live.’
‘But they’re locked up. Right?’
‘At night.’ This is the psychologist again. ‘Prisoners are free to wander outside during the day: providing they don’t go out of the gates without permission. This is an open prison, as the advert said. They’re often known as cells without bars. Many of our men go out to work during the day in the prison van and return by 6 p.m. It prepares them for life in the real world when they are released.’
Sounds mad to me. ‘What kind of jobs do they do?’
The governor appears used to this question. ‘Whatever we can find them. Not everyone, as you can imagine, is keen on employing someone who is still in prison. Charity shops can be quite flexible. Fast-food outlets too. Local colleges sometimes allow day-release students, provided they pass the risk requirements.’
‘How can you be certain they’ll come back? Don’t they try to run away?’
‘That’s exactly the point. It’s a matter of trust. If one of our men absconds, they will be moved to a more secure prison when they are found.’
When, I note. Not if.
I think of the brief research I’ve done on the net. ‘But if they’re in an open prison, they’re not dangerous. Right?’
His voice sounds distinctly hedgy. ‘Cat D signifies a low-risk category. In other words, our prisoners aren’t considered to be a threat to society any more. But many have committed serious crimes in the past. This is their last stopping post until release. Unless, of course, they commit another offence inside.’
That’s it. I don’t like this place. I want to leave. And I can tell that these men don’t want me either. Not the psychologist with the deceptively gentle voice. And definitely not the governor, whose last little speech seems intended to put me off.
They need someone who is used to being in a prison. Someone who looks tough on the outside. Not a skinny, round-shouldered blonde with a portfolio under her arm which she keeps dropping with nerves.
I can’t help thinking that my sister, with her confident I’m in charge here ways, would have been more suitable for the job than me. What would she have made of all this? Get out, I can almost hear her say. Before it’s too late.
My interviewers are rising to their feet now. ‘Would you like to look round, Miss Baker?’
No. I want to go home. Back to the safety of my flat. Get myself ready for the class I’m running this evening at the college for people who haven’t broken the law. Yet it seems as though the question is rhetorical. The door is already being opened for me and I am being led down the corridor past a man in Day-Glo orange.
‘Morning, Governor.’
‘Morning, Mister Evans.’
Mister? But, judging from his clothes, he’s a prisoner. The psychologist notices my surprise. ‘We believe in civility here. Staff usually address inmates in a formal manner. Bad behaviour is not tolerated. Anyone breaking the rules is shipped out.’
‘What do you mean “shipped out”?’ I ask unsteadily. I have a vision of a small boat bobbing on the waves.
‘Moved to another prison. Overnight, usually. It causes less disruption than
if done during the day.’
We’re outside now: the autumn sun is making me squint. As we walk past the huts I notice a tub of flowers outside the one nearest to me. Through the window I spot a line of shirts hanging from the curtain rail. It seems almost homely. There’s birdseed scattered on a window sill. A kitten saunters by.
‘Feral,’ says the governor, marking my surprise. ‘Started with one litter which led to another. The men feed them.’ He gives me a sideways glance. ‘You’d be surprised at how even the most hardened criminal can be as soft as butter when it comes to animals. They’re often the same about their mothers too.’
We’re stopping outside a cabin which appears more modern than the others. Less run-down, although the metallic steps leading up are wobbly. ‘This is the Education building. The successful applicant will have a studio here.’
He unlocks the door. My first impression is of a sparsely furnished central room with doors leading off it. Each one is labelled. SUPPORT. READING SKILLS. MATHEMATICS. A man in a green jogging suit is sitting in a chair bent over a book, almost hugging it as though he doesn’t want anyone else to see.
‘Morning, Mister Jones.’
‘Morning, Governor.’
‘Would you like to tell our visitor what you are reading?’ His voice is stern.
Reluctantly, the man holds it out. White paint has been smeared over the text. Covering the pages are pencil sketches of people. A man sitting on the ground. A woman pegging out washing. A child playing on the swing.
‘Are these your drawings?’ I ask, intrigued.
He nods.
‘This book has a library stamp in the front.’ The governor is looking severe. ‘Were you responsible for damaging it like this?’
‘The librarian give it to me to use.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
The man’s stubbly chin trembles. ‘Yes.’
I suspect he is lying. And I’m pretty sure the governor does too. But these sketches are good.
‘Have you always drawn?’ I ask.
