Breaking Out

by Janice Nix

  Mummy talked to herself when she was cooking food for us. ‘Mi wonder wha’ dem pickney aah eat,’ she said. Their meal far away seemed to matter more to her than our dinner right there on the table. She wrote long letters that took weeks and weeks to reach them, and the replies, when she received them, had taken weeks more to get back to her. Every day she told us how she missed her children – and every time she did, I knew just what she meant. She meant that Terry and I would never be enough. We didn’t comfort her for all that she had lost.

  Our parents were strict with us. They did things the traditional way that they were done in Antigua. They both believed it was the right way to bring up a child – firm discipline and jobs that we must do around the house. We cleaned the stairs, emptied dustbins and washed up. Then I found out that my schoolfriends didn’t have to do anything like this.

  ‘But I’m a child!’ I said to Mummy cheekily one day when she told me that I had to do my chores. ‘Children don’t have to do this here. My friend said …’ Then I noticed the horror in her eyes. Much later on, I understood. When I rejected the way I was brought up, it seemed to her that England had stolen me away. Mummy had lost her other children – now to lose me as well was just too much for her to bear.

  As I lay in the darkness and listened to her crying, I wondered where her sadness could possibly be hidden in the daylight. How was something so unbearable so silent? Year after year, I felt her sadness seeping into everything, the cooking pots and tablecloths and furniture around us. Worse than her tears was the groaning sound she made, hollow and hopeless, from deep inside her body. I knew what that sound meant: the world was ending. It ended for Mummy when she left her five children far away.

  Two days later, I heard Claire coming back from her legal visit. Everybody did. Her howls of agony rang along Send’s empty corridors, invading every cell in the wing. I didn’t have to ask what the decision had been.

  The corridors were empty because Send was on lockdown that day. There were problems with short staffing, which meant we were confined to our cells when there would normally be free association. Claire’s footsteps, and those of the officer with her, passed by along the landing. As I leaned my back against the door, I was close enough to hear her catch her breath, then give a deep and dreadful groan. I’d heard that groan before, so many nights in my childhood. It was the sound my mother made.

  ‘Claire?’ I shouted. ‘Claire?’

  No answer.

  ‘Claire! I’ll be there soon!’

  Her cell door slammed, and there was silence. I banged on my door. When I’d been banging for several minutes, I heard an officer outside. She sounded busy and distracted.

  ‘What is it, Janice?’

  ‘I’m a listener. I need to speak to Claire Daniels. I know it’s a lockdown and it’s difficult for you – but I think she’s in danger.’

  ‘Look, you know I can’t move listeners around right now.’

  ‘She’s too upset to be left on her own. If you can just take me down there and put me in with her, then –’

  ‘I’m sorry. No one’s free. As soon as we have cover, I’ll make sure –’

  I could feel myself starting to get angry.

  ‘Please listen,’ I said. ‘She’s in danger. She might hurt herself.’

  ‘She can’t. Her cell’s a safe place. We’ll sort this out as soon as we can.’

  All I could do was wait.

  Send was always noisy. There were voices and footsteps, the sound of doors opening and closing and the rattle of keys. But now I stood by my cell window in a strange, sudden hush. I pressed my palms against the cold green wall. A long time went by.

  There’s something wrong. I know it. There’s something really wrong.

  Then my cell door opened. An officer looked in.

  ‘Janice,’ she said, ‘the last time you saw Claire, what discussion did you have?’

  ‘She said – look, does it matter? Can I see her?’

  The officer didn’t answer, just closed the cell door. I heard the crunch of the key.

  ‘Hey!’ I called out. ‘Please! Let me see her! She shouldn’t be alone!’

  But shouting wouldn’t make them let me out. All it would do was risk my trusted role as a listener. I forced myself to stay calm. There was another endless silence. Hours went by. When lunchtime came, we were taken out cell by cell to fetch our food. This restriction of movement must mean something very serious was happening in the prison. As I carried my tray back to my cell, I heard someone shouting from upstairs.

  ‘There’s an ambulance outside!’

  I started to feel sick. Then there were more voices.

  ‘It’s Claire! There’s something wrong with Claire!’

  I heard the echo of her whisper. I can’t live without Jay and Beth. And I won’t. I really mean it.

  Claire used her clothes to make a ligature. She tied it to the handle of the door, then forced the fabric tightly in the crack across the top. It was enough to take her weight. She hanged herself alone. She could have put her feet down on the floor at any time, but she didn’t. When she said she’d rather die than lose her children, she had meant it.

  ‘Do you know what?’ I said. ‘I’m lucky.’

  Edna patted my arm. She’d been sitting there for hours, letting me just talk about Claire and how she died. She tried to help me carry the weight of my anger and my helplessness.

  ‘Lucky?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m lucky that I never had to worry for my daughter. When I got locked up, her dad stepped in. Like the trooper he is. There was no question about it.’

  Edna smiled. ‘That was very good.’

  ‘He took her to America. I was upset, but I knew it was the right thing to do. She was safe.’

  ‘You had a good man there, my dear,’ Edna said.

  ‘And now – my daughter’s terribly angry with me. And she’s right to be angry. But Nadia’s alive, and so am I. There’s still a chance to make things better.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. There’s always hope,’ said Edna briskly. ‘You are both still here, and that means things can change.’

  ‘And I’m in prison, but my sentence will end. My life’s not over. There’s still time. That’s lucky too.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘But it’s too late for Claire.’

  Edna sniffed.

  ‘My dear – you did your best. You did everything you could.’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t enough. It shouldn’t have happened. Someone should have been there.’

  I was thinking of the officers’ rota – the pattern of shifts that they worked, to make sure there were always enough people on duty to manage the prison safely. On the day Claire died, there was a gap in that rota. One empty square on a single sheet of paper made the space for her life to slip away. It happened because there was a shortage of staff. The more I thought about that, the more terrible it seemed.

  It wasn’t fair. She died because the system didn’t work. It shouldn’t be like this.

  Edna and I sat there together and cried. We cried for Claire, and for her children, and all the terrible things that shouldn’t happen but can never be put right.

  FEBRUARY 2016

  ‘And was that how it started?’ Izzie asked me.

  It was the end of our weekly supervision. In the last few minutes, as usual, we switched away from business and just had a little chat. She was curious, always asking questions, trying to find out more about me.

  ‘How what started?’

  ‘Your job. This job you do now.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I told her. ‘It took a long time, though. I didn’t just fall into this job. I had to really focus to get here.’

  Izzie looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘But Janice,’ she said, ‘there’s something I don’t get.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know what it’s like with a criminal record. How nobody trusts you so they won’t employ you, or you try to
keep it quiet so you have to tell lies and it gets really complicated – anyway, all that. You must have had those kinds of problems too.’

  ‘Certainly I did,’ I told her.

  ‘Because – it’s hard for people like us, right? No one believes in us.’

  We sat there for a moment in silence. Izzie’s words were true, and we both knew it.

  ‘Society don’t believe an ex-con can change,’ she said softly.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No. You’re right about that.’

  ‘So – all this stuff about building your new life. How did you do it? Didn’t they try to stop you?’

  14

  Position of trust

  IN 2004, I GOT my first job. Being a listener had given me a sense that I was useful to others – that I could make a difference. It felt so good that I wanted to do more. I knew I had to start small, so I looked at the job ads in the local paper.

  When I applied for the post of ward clerk at the local community hospital, I wondered if they’d even consider an applicant from prison. But I tried, with the support of the governor of Send, and they gave me a chance. Prisoners who work are taken by van to their placements each day, and dropped off close by so that their status isn’t known to everyone. All the managers knew, and so did the doctors on the ward. But everyone was nice, and I loved the job from my very first day. I found a sense of purpose and belonging, working with patients and their families, helping people through bad times. It really did feel like a new start.

  In April 2005, I was released from Send on licence. When I got home, I faced a horrible shock. Throughout my sentence, people I knew had moved into my flat at different times and paid rent to the council in my name. I’d also used what was left of Mummy’s legacy to make some payments myself. But then I lost track of who was living there. I had to let it go. To survive a prison sentence, it’s vital to condition your mind to your circumstances, not thinking or worrying too much about outside and whatever might be happening there. This is here. This is now. Just deal with this. Don’t waste energy on things which are beyond your control.

  So the flat had stood empty for months. It had been burgled, and burgled again. When I climbed the stairs at last and opened my front door, I met a scene of devastation. Not a stick of furniture was left. The carpets were gone, and the kitchen was a shell – even the cupboards had been yanked off the walls and removed. Two of the windows were broken. There was a dank and musty smell. In the living room, wires poked from the plaster where the chandelier used to be. I wandered slowly from room to room, my footsteps clattering on the bare floors. It was desolate.

  In that desolation, I could easily have picked up the phone. ‘You got a parcel?’ ‘Looking for half a pound of sugar?’ All I had to do was say the words. Except that that one phone call would cost me my whole life. Everything I’d done. Everything I hoped that I might do in the future. It would all be gone.

  For months I had to sleep on the floor while I saved as much money as I could to replace my possessions. It was hard, but I made up my mind that I wouldn’t feel sorry for myself. After all, the situation was one I had created. And it could have been far worse. I had a home. I had a job. There was hope. If the council had been a bit more organised, they might have thrown me out of the flat altogether.

  When someone goes to prison, their housing benefit is stopped after thirteen weeks. Many lose their homes as a result. When they re-apply, they are told that they have made themselves intentionally homeless. They go straight to the bottom of the list. If they have no family or friends to support them, they can end up on the street when they’re released. I was lucky that this wasn’t me.

  Still, my first few weeks of freedom were difficult. Making even the smallest decisions for myself seemed an enormous challenge – what to have for dinner, what time to go to bed – after years when the prison had decided every detail of my life. The simplest things were overwhelming, even eating. Metal knives and forks felt strange and heavy and the prongs banged my teeth when I tried to use them. It was so awkward that I went out and bought a pack of plastic knives and forks like the ones we used inside.

  Still, I had my work, and the company of people who by now were my good friends, to keep me moving forward. Gradually, my life began to find an even keel.

  And I had something else as well. Nadia flew to London to see me. She brought a gift from Emmanuel – some money to help to replace my lost things. It was an act of true kindness.

  It was strange to see my little girl all grown up in the room where her toys and her dolls were once piled on the bed – and more often spread across the floor. I could almost hear her footsteps as she ran about searching for some lost object she needed for school, or her giggles as she watched morning telly. So many days and years we should have spent together were wasted and gone. But now I thought of her loss, not just of mine. I remembered the day that she flew to America while I was in prison – how the pain of parting tore me up almost as much as the day she was born. But on her lonely journey, it was Nadia who suffered, so much more than I had ever done. It was Nadia’s childhood that was lost in the wrong turns I took.

  We stood in that empty room and talked. I told her how much my life had changed. That I would never break the law again. That the future would be completely different. But this was all just words, I said – I know that. Only time would let her truly trust me. I told her that I hoped she would give me that time. Then a better future could come in and fill this sad empty space.

  When she left for New York, I went with her to Heathrow. After she had vanished through the barriers, I realised I was smiling. It was the first time I could let her go without crying. I knew that she was coming back.

  After five and a half years at the community hospital, I decided to move on. I was nervous, but by then I had experience – I thought that I could get a more responsible position. And although I’d loved my role, the daily travelling was tiring. I looked for something closer to my home. Then I had a stroke of luck. I found a really good job as Patient Services Coordinator at a large hospital quite close by.

  At my leaving do, in a pub just up the road from work, I decided to tell my friends the truth – that when I started the job, I’d been on day release from HMP Send, a few miles up the road. They were astonished. At first they thought that I was winding them up.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You were in prison!’

  ‘You’re lying!’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Well …’ I began, but then Kim stopped me.

  ‘I understand why. I think you’re pretty brave to tell us now. But to get a job like that – to rebuild your life – good for you!’

  ‘Was that why you couldn’t come to drinks after work?’ asked Vivian.

  I smiled sheepishly.

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t mean to be unfriendly. The prison van used to drop me round the corner and pick me up at night. So I could never go out after work, or be late getting back.’

  ‘So … you told us you were your dad’s carer and you couldn’t be home late?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. They’d been so kind and understanding that I’d always felt bad about the lies I’d had to tell them. ‘But if you’ve been in prison, it’s difficult.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Vivian. ‘I bet that’s really hard. People would just think …’ She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

  ‘I did have a problem once,’ I told her with a smile. ‘With Doc Walsh.’

  Dr Walsh had been cold and stiff at first, glaring suspiciously at me when the drugs trolley went around. He thought I might try to steal the drugs. It took months before we managed to establish a better relationship. My first Christmas, there was a small drinks party in working hours which meant that I was able to attend. As I sipped a glass of wine with him, I noticed no one else was in earshot. I decided that I’d risk a little joke.

  ‘About those pharmaceuticals,’ I said with a grin. ‘I know you’re worried, but they really aren’t my th
ing. Not enough profit selling those. Now if that drugs trolley had cocaine on it …’

  Dr Walsh threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘Okay, Janice! Please understand. You’re not quite what I’m used to.’

  ‘That’s alright.’

  I’d treasured that laugh we had shared. It felt like putting the past in its place. It was there, and it would always be a part of me. But it didn’t define me anymore.

  JANUARY 2010

  The phone on my desk rang at 9.05 a.m. The day’s first mug of tea was still steaming.

  ‘Patient Services Coordinator – good morning,’ I said. It was only my third week in the post. I still wasn’t used to my new title. I heard the voice of my manager, Delia Thomas.

  ‘Janice? Would you come to my office straight away?’ Her tone was stiff and remote. At once I knew that something wasn’t right.

  My first thought was that I must have made a serious mistake in my new job. My stomach clenched with worry. I knew I had a lot to learn – the post at a large hospital in the city was a very big step up. As quickly as I could, I made my way down the hospital corridor and tapped on Delia’s office door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Inside the office, she wasn’t on her own. A serious-faced man in a suit was sitting alongside her on the far side of her desk. I recognised him from the hospital’s induction day when I first started: he was the Director of HR.

  ‘Please take a seat.’

  They both looked so grim that I grew even more alarmed.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Janice,’ said the Director, ‘we’ll come straight to the point. It’s about your DBS check.’

  I’d given all the information about my criminal record on the application form when I’d applied for the role. In my interview, Delia herself had asked me about it. So while I knew that the DBS check the hospital would obtain – an official report on my criminal history – wouldn’t be pretty, I hadn’t been worried. Until now.

  ‘You did not disclose your criminal record when you applied for the role of Patient Services Coordinator,’ the Director went on.