Prisoner

by Ross Greenwood

  18

  Present

  I cycle home from my first cushy shift on the female side with the memories of that cold night in Reception at the forefront of my mind. After such an easy day, I’ve forgotten about the conversation Abi and I had before I left this morning. The air around the house smells of barbecues for a change. I can hear kids giggling behind their fenced gardens, but, yet again, I open the back door with trepidation.

  Ivan is colouring at the table next to his sister. They both glance up. She grins, and they return to their tasks.

  ‘Daddy’s home,’ shouts Tilly.

  She leaves her seat and gives me a perfunctory hug. I slip my jacket off and wipe the sweat from my brow. A beer would go down nicely, but the fridge is emptier than usual. Leaving my work boots at the bottom of the stairs, I head for our bedroom. Abi is lying on it in state. Her chest rises too rapidly for her to be asleep.

  ‘Hey,’ I say.

  ‘I did a shop,’ she whispers, ‘but the card declined. I had to leave everything.’

  She keeps her eyes closed.

  ‘How have the kids been?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve been up here.’

  ‘Look, sorry for what I said earlier. I can see you’re trying hard. The jail takes its toll on me.’

  ‘Get a new job, then.’

  ‘Where am I going to find one that pays the same? We’re struggling as it is.’

  She opens her eyes and looks at me for a few moments.

  ‘Do you know what I realised today?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You talk to me as if I’m one of your prisoners.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You do. You’ve changed since you started working there. I don’t know who you are any more.’

  ‘Ivan has changed us. Two kids and no money has changed us.’

  ‘The truth is, I am a prisoner here. Do you know what it’s like to feel trapped like this?’

  I sit on the bed next to her, but not touching. She’s right. We are prisoners in our own lives. Confined as surely as they are. There are no bars, but there’s no escape. There is no point denying it.

  ‘We’re trapped together. Things will change. They’ll get better.’

  A tear trickles from her eye and streaks down her cheek.

  ‘In ten years? Fifteen? I can’t wait that long.’ She sobs. ‘I won’t last that long.’

  ‘What can we do? We’re stuck, but at least we’re together. And they’ve moved me at work to the female side because of Wyatt.’

  She breathes deeply through her nose; I think to stop herself crying.

  ‘Is he okay? Will he be all right?’

  ‘I suspect the other prisoners are the ones who are in danger.’

  She lets out a short chuckle and the tears flow freely.

  ‘It’s easier on the female side,’ I urge. ‘I won’t be so stressed. I feel relaxed now. I’ve got twenty quid, so I’ll nip to the shop and get some stuff to keep us going until payday. See if they have a four-pack of that cheap cider. I can take the kids to the duck pond, which will get them out of your hair for a bit. After all, we have plenty of mouldy bread.’

  Instead of laughing, she turns away from me.

  ‘Come on, Abi.’

  I place my hand on her hip, but she doesn’t turn around.

  19

  Abi didn’t get out of bed again yesterday. I left Tilly and Ivan colouring and surprised myself by how much food I could buy from the shops by choosing own brand. The cheap bread tasted of sugar, though, so the ducks will be pleased with our next visit. We didn’t go for a walk in the end because when I got back, the kids were hungry. After we’d eaten, they just sat either side of me on the sofa.

  We watched a cartoon, The Book of Life, which was depressing, but they seemed unaffected. Ivan kept smiling at me and cuddled in. I’m not sure if he senses I’m more relaxed, or if he’s picked up on the tension in the house and is trying to fix it. He fell asleep, but when I lifted him up to take him to his room, he noticed and slid out of my arms. Both kids went to bed easily though and dropped off quickly. Abi always complains about how traumatic the process is but they’re usually good enough for me. I drank the four cans of cider myself and slept on the sofa.

  It’s 7 a.m. when I wake up feeling completely refreshed, despite sleeping in my work clothes again. I have another eight until five shift today. My clean uniform is hopefully in the bedroom, so I creep up the stairs. To my relief and surprise, Abi washed some shirts yesterday, so I strip, wash my face and armpits, and slip a fresh shirt on. There is even an ironed pair of trousers. Abi’s either still asleep or pretending to be. Why didn’t I think to wash them myself, seeing as she’s struggling?

  I skip breakfast, leave the house, grab my cycle, and scoot off. It’s a glorious morning. The sun is up and twinkles on the river as I head past it. The paths are full of dog walkers and other cyclists despite the early hour. I feel no tension thinking of the day ahead and it’s an intoxicating sensation. Is this how people with normal jobs are on the way to work? I’m early and stop at the petrol station to buy The Mail on Sunday.

  The front of the paper is always too vitriolic for my liking. It feels as if politicians know nothing about my world, but Abi likes the women’s magazine. It also has a great pull-out sports section and a decent TV guide. I often photocopy it for the prisoners on the wing. Some officers think I’m mad to do that, but few of the inmates can afford newspapers and planning a night’s TV is something they can focus on. They also have to come to the office to look at the guide, so I can see their mental state and chat to them. Admittedly, it gets nicked when I’m not looking before the end of the week.

  I’ve made good time when I arrive at the prison. There’s nobody else waiting for keys, so I’m soon through and join the sole officer in the hub. It’s Sheraton, who came over to the male side a few days back. He would have started at seven to relieve the night staff, whereas the rest of us don’t start until eight at the weekend. There is something not quite right about him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

  ‘The night staff found a non-responsive this morning when they were doing the handover roll count. Oscar One came down and cracked the door. Stiff and cold. She must have died in the night.’

  ‘No way. Was she old?’

  ‘Yeah, think so. I got here just as they were removing the body. It looks like natural causes. Apparently, she had underlying health issues caused by years of drug abuse. She was on Zulu 1, cell five.’

  I log into the prison IT system and bring up the mug shot for Z1-5. My stomach rolls as I recognise the old lady who gave me the mock salute at the med hatch yesterday. She was only forty-six.

  The in-cell buzzer sounds for cell W1-14. It’s on speaker, so I press the button and answer.

  ‘Please state your medical emergency.’

  ‘Get off me! Get fucking off me, you bitch. Arghh. Fuck! Fuck!’

  And then the most ear-piercing shriek I have ever heard in my life, worse than any horror film, screeches from the speaker.

  ‘Noooooooo!’ she howls.

  And then another scream, which is abruptly cut off.

  My nerves jangle and my entire body has goose bumps, but Sheraton is already out of the hub and running to Whisky wing. He opens the gate and leaves it swinging for me. I run through and lock it behind me, just in case it’s a fiddle and the prisoner’s plan is to dodge past us and run when we open her cell.

  Sheraton runs to the laundry room which each wing has for personal clothes and wing kitchen cleaning items, and returns with a towel. I reach W1-14 and open the observation panel, but it’s too steamy in the room to see much. I can just about make out a figure standing at the back of the cell facing us. Sheraton stands next to me and nods. I unlock the door, push it wide, and step back.

  The door swings open to reveal an average girl in just a sports bra, nothing else, perched against the radiator with her arms outstretched. Her chin is on her ches
t and her hair is pulled into a ponytail. Her forehead is marble white. Blood surges from a huge wound across her stomach from hip to hip. The cut is so deep I can see the meat and fat of her flesh. A huge puddle of blood has formed between her feet.

  Her head rises and her eyes focus on me. She roars and shrieks, deafening us.

  ‘My baby!’

  Sheraton curses and presses his talk button.

  ‘QP, this is Whisky Two, calling a Code Red for Whisky 1 wing, Houseblock One. Ambulance required, Oscar One required, Hotel One required, immediately.’

  The hotel call signs are for Healthcare and they are definitely needed, but we need to make the situation safe before they can go in. I edge into the room and peer around the door where her attacker must be hiding, but there’s no one else in the room. Sheraton strides past me pulling a pair of plastic gloves on and gives me a pair.

  ‘Put them on and hold her right hand.’

  The woman’s head is down again. I grab her hand at the wrist and Sheraton grabs her left. She doesn’t struggle. The razor blade in her left hand glints in the sunlight through the window as he removes it from her grip.

  ‘Jessica. It’s okay now. Dalton, grab the towel.’

  He picks her up with one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and gently lays her on the bed. I finally recover my senses, fold the towel, and press it hard against the wound. She has seemingly gone into a catatonic state. I shout at her.

  ‘Please stay awake, Jessica!’

  ‘It’s okay,’ says Sheraton. ‘It looks worse than it is. She does this every two or three months. They stitch her up and send her back.’

  I hear the houseblock doors bang open and the nurse appears at the cell doorway. She’s a small Filipina woman called Rosa who usually works nights. She chucks the big medi-bag on the floor and unzips it.

  ‘Oh, Jessica. What do you do again? Stay calm.’

  Oscar One arrives and takes a look.

  ‘The usual?’ he asks Sheraton, who nods.

  ‘I’ve got it covered. You two clear the route for the ambulance.’

  We stride towards the hub area. Sheraton has blood over most of his shirt. I point to it.

  ‘Happens all the time over here. I keep a spare uniform in my locker.’

  The other officers are arriving now. Braddock asks Sheraton what’s happened. I feel superfluous. Braddock tells Sheraton to go and get changed. He’ll help sort the ambulance out. I put two fingers on my wrist to check my pulse. It’s out of control.

  20

  It’s nearly 9 a.m. by the time the paramedics have left and we start unlocking the rest of the houseblock. Tex and I are on the YO wing and leave the hub together. I unlock the gate while Tex carries the visits list, appointment slips, and the ACCT books we have. These are folders for people at risk of suicide or self-harm. All the prisoners complain about having to wait for their breakfast when we let them out. A small girl with long blonde hair and a mean mouth shakes her head at me when I say we had to wait for an ambulance. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her pilled fleece, which looks desperate for a wash.

  ‘Cut-up should try slicing her throat, not her stomach,’ she says. ‘I need breakfast early.’

  The inmates are like commuters who grumble without thought when someone has thrown themselves on the track and caused a delay. I write the roll count, a miserly nineteen young offenders, into the observation book. The obs book is a blank notebook where officers document everything that occurs on the wing. The SOs expect them to be full of info. The idea being the shift about to start can find out if any prisoners had a bad visit the day before, or if there was fighting that didn’t merit a trip to the block. You have little time to update it on the male side, so I rarely bother to fill it in or read it.

  Tex, on the other hand, reads it word for word. I raise an eyebrow at her, causing her to chuckle.

  ‘I’m not being cheeky, but you have much to learn about how we do things over here, Dalton. You and Fats are legends to the new recruits over here because of what you do on the other side. Especially the younger officers. But you need to be smart over here, not just brave and brawny. There isn’t a YO wing on the male side, is there?’

  ‘No, they tend to keep them on the induction wing with the new arrivals, but if we’re full they go on a standard wing with the adults.’

  ‘How’s that work?’

  ‘Pretty good. If the young ’uns are too gobby, one of the faces gives them a slap and they drop back into line. Occasionally you’ll get one who scares even the faces, and the wing falls apart.’

  ‘Makes sense. Here, we have all the YOs together. We have nineteen of them today. That doesn’t seem a lot, but the courts don’t send children to adult prison unless every single other option has been exhausted.’

  She walks away but stops and turns in the doorway.

  ‘I’ve worked the male landings enough times to know you guys don’t check the obs book first thing, and it doesn’t matter too much. That’s cos men are simple creatures. They have a scrap and then it’s over. The fight settles it, regardless of who wins. It’s different here. Women hold bitter grudges, sometimes for months.’

  Braddock comes on the wing with two of the orange ACCT books.

  ‘You forgot these,’ he says with a smile.

  ‘Really, that means we have nine?’

  ‘Yes, and maybe more on the way.’ He speaks quietly then. ‘A brutal cut up like the one this morning might well set more off, so be on the lookout. Make sure you double-check the number of obs. Enjoy.’

  I read the first book. The picture on the front tells me it’s the girl with the long blonde hair and the mean mouth from earlier. Her name is Rose-Marie. I flick through it. Three observations an hour during the day, five at night. That’s a lot. On a wing of eighty on the male side, you might have two of these books. Both men would only be on one an hour. Rose-Marie’s triggers for self-harm are anxiety and depression following a gang rape, and the anniversary of her sister’s death, which she says was her fault. It doesn’t say whether it was or not.

  I step outside the office and take a sneaky peek at the few prisoners who have bothered to get out of bed. Some are skittish like deer. I recognise the haunted signs of abuse in their eyes. Others stare me down. A sweet-looking ginger-haired girl in prison attire gives me a cheeky sneer.

  ‘What the feck you staring at, Uncle?’

  Tex is standing behind her and laughs her head off.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dalton. They call me Granny.’

  It takes me until lunch to get back on an even keel after the brutal start. I let the servery workers off the wing to fetch the food trolleys and spot SO Nasima Khan leaving the hub. I smile at her and she walks over.

  ‘Morning, Dalton. How are you enjoying your new home?’

  ‘The ladies have made me feel very welcome.’

  ‘I spoke to Peabody yesterday. He’s coming back tomorrow, but he doesn’t want to be on the YO wing any more, which was where he’d been allocated.’

  ‘I thought it was Peasbody?’

  ‘No, who told you that? Anyway, with Sandringham and him gone, you and Trudy will be their replacements with the YOs. That okay?’

  ‘Sure, ma’am.’

  Nasima looks hard at me, suspecting I’m taking the piss. I’m not, though. It seems I have a bit to learn. All my shifts won’t be with Tex, but a fair few will be, and that’s just fine.

  The trolleys that bring over each wing’s food at mealtimes arrive. They look like tall plastic fridges, but keep the contents warm, not cold. The women are a lot more careful with them than the men.

  I pull the trolley onto our wing. As I lock the gate, Tara Prestwick, the girl from yesterday, strolls past. She catches my eye.

  ‘Ooh, super screw has graced us with his presence again.’

  ‘Morning, Ms Prestwick. Are you lost?’

  ‘I’m one of the two hub orderlies. I’m trusted, so I get to wander. In fact, I’ve been here
more often than you have, so I can help you. And call me Tara.’

  ‘Fair enough, Tara. How come you aren’t on the YO wing?’

  ‘I know I look thirteen, but I’m twenty-two. Kitty is now the same age, too, so we’re padded up on Z1.’

  I struggle with whom Kitty is until I realise she means Monroe, the overweight girl I saw in Reception when she was brought in.

  ‘Have you met Billie yet?’ asks Tara.

  ‘Billie?’

  ‘Obviously not. Chat soon.’

  Tara winks at me and wanders back to her wing. The hub orderly is responsible for keeping the area between the hub and the wings clean. We’re always sacking them on the male side for dealing drugs through the wing bars. I stare after Tara, wondering what she’s in for. I’ll sneak a look at her record at lunchtime.

  I return to the servery and stand at the door. Mealtimes are a flashpoint on the male side, but the girls queue up respectfully again. Rose-Marie is on duty, serving her first ‘customers’ with her customary scowl. You need an aggressive con to serve the food, because the meals aren’t quite big enough to fill you up. People get the arse and ask for more. That’s why many do paid work, so they can buy extra to boost the servery food. Canteen is the term used within prisons for the weekly delivery of items the inmates purchase for themselves.

  The food is more than acceptable. They have fish and chips on Fridays, a fry-up on Saturday morning and Sunday lunch with all the trimmings. I’m really partial to the risotto. If the prisoners can’t be bothered to choose their options on the consoles the week before, they get a standard meal suitable for vegetarians. That’s usually when the arguments start. The beetroot and cucumber baguette causes a lot of trouble.

  The officers more or less have the same thing at lunch, although we get bigger portions. Some won’t eat it because the male prisoners prepare it, but I do. I can’t afford not to. Yet again, I’m not so different from the cons.