by S. E. Lynes
‘Graham, I’m here. I’m listening. You can do this.’
Graham is crying. He plunges his face into his hands. ‘I killed a man. I killed a man, Richard. I took a life and I can’t give it back.’
Richard lets the words settle around them. He is about to speak when Graham sits up, wiping at his face with the backs of his hands. Richard digs in his jacket pocket, finds a tissue, hands it to Graham.
‘Ta,’ he says, and blows his nose. ‘I called the busies. The police. My hands were covered in blood; his blood was all over me, all over the phone. That’s all I can remember. I was in the lounge, they said, on the floor, when they got there. I was in a state of shock, crying and that. They could hardly get a word out of us.’ Graham sits up straight, finally, and spreads his hands. He stops fidgeting and becomes very still. ‘I confessed straight off. I didn’t try to duck out of it. But today I want to say properly that it was my fault. It was me. Not drugs, not my dad, me.’ He pauses, to control his shaking voice. ‘And that’s why I’m here.’
Richard’s chest contracts slowly. He’d thought himself ready to hear Graham’s confession, but now the truth of it is out, he feels a suspended sense of shock, as though his body is aware, overhead, but is preparing to deal with it later. At the same time, everything falls into place. It is possible to know someone, he thinks, to know them well, and still, after one more conversation, to have the solution to the whole puzzle of them in so far as anyone can fathom another human being. Graham has confessed – not to God, no, but he has got the words out before Richard and before Richard’s God, and that is enough. This is how Graham’s unburdening has gone, how it always had to go.
Seconds pass.
Richard senses that Graham is waiting for him. ‘How do you feel?’ he says.
Graham puffs, shakes his head.
‘Are you sorry?’
‘Of course I am. Fucking hell, Richard.’ Graham rubs at his hair, blinks repeatedly, but tears win out and run down his face. ‘It’s like, my whole life, everything good I tried to do, I messed up, you know? And everything bad I tried not to do, I ended up doing. I mean, it’s so f-f-final. Life is the last thing you can take from someone, and you can’t give it back and there’s nothing you can do to change it. There’s nothing I can do to change it. And I get eight poxy years. Why? Because Barry attacked me. But he didn’t kill me, did he? He didn’t take my life. I wanted to come here, do you know that? I turned myself in. I should stay in here for ever for what I did. They should throw away the key.’ He blows his nose again, wipes at his eyes.
‘It strikes me,’ Richard says after a moment, ‘that your sentence began more than six years ago. You were suffering long before you ever came here, weren’t you?’
Graham bows his head and sniffs. ‘S’pose.’
‘But like you say,’ Richard continues, ‘no one else did what you did; it was you. And it takes a lot of strength to talk about something like that, to accept responsibility. I guess now the important thing here is to say sorry and put it behind you.’
‘I am sorry.’ Graham covers his face with his hands again. ‘I’m so sorry and I’m so ashamed. I’m sorry.’
Richard crosses himself and moves his chair alongside Graham’s. He hesitates a moment before placing his hand on Graham’s shoulder. This is not permitted, but in all humanity, in all faith, in all conscience, Richard cannot leave him in his loneliness. ‘Graham. You’ve served your time. Nothing in the past can be improved or changed by you staying here, and yet nothing can be gained in the future by you leaving under the weight of what you did. Guilt is not helpful. It is there to tell us when we have behaved badly and when we need to make amends, but other than that, it has no purpose. You have taken responsibility. You have paid. What you have done is irreversible, but your journey is not. It’s not. Your family has suffered enough. You have suffered enough. Your daughter misses her father; your girlfriend wants you home. Your mother wants you home. Your sister wants you home. You have to forgive yourself as God forgives you, otherwise nothing good can ever come of what happened. Do you understand that? Without forgiveness there is no freedom, inside or outside, not in any real sense. You have to forgive yourself as others forgive you. Do you remember I promised never to lie to you all those months ago? Well, I can tell you now, in all truth, that God does forgive you.
Graham pulls at his face. ‘Do you forgive me?’
‘Of course. Yes, I do.’
Fifty-Two
Carol
1993
Carol sits back and checks her foundation. Hard to tell if it’s blended properly without daylight, but her reflection’s not bad, she decides; not for forty-odd, for a woman who isn’t a film star or anything, and who’s had three kids. She decides she looks like an old Snow White, if Snow White had actually given birth to all seven dwarves. The thought makes her laugh; it’s like something Pauline would say. She likes the dress she’s wearing too, although she worries it’s a bit young for her, the pink a bit bright. Jim made her buy it when she passed her Grade 1 accountancy. She wore it when he took her to the Casa Italia in Liverpool to celebrate. She got tipsy on red wine and Jim had to give her a piggyback to the train station.
‘Carol!’ Jim shouts in a whisper, so as not to wake the others. Tracy and Jade are staying, so Tracy can look after Katy and take her and Jade to school.
‘Coming!’
Lipstick. Inside the drawer of the dressing table, the little compartments are lined with red velvet. She waves her finger over the top, looking for the newest and finding it: Fuchsia Frenzy. A change from Red Tulip, but it’s a perfect match for her dress. She smooths it over her lips, almost rubs it off, worried she’s making too much effort.
‘Carol!’
‘Coming now, love.’
She stands and picks up her cardie, slips her lipstick and mascara into her bag, just in case she gets upset once she’s there and makes it run. She’s been in and out of tears for the last three days.
She stops at Katy’s room. Still asleep, with that expression of peace she always has, this funny, fair child, so like Jim when he sleeps, except much prettier, and with a much smaller nose. And she doesn’t snore. Or fart for that matter. Not loudly, at least. Carol lets her cheek hover millimetres from her daughter’s mouth, almost touching, so that she can feel the regular soft, warm bursts of breath. After a moment, she kisses her little girl on the forehead, making her stir and roll over with a groan. She tucks the covers over her, kisses her again and pulls the door to behind her.
She thinks about checking on Tracy and Jade in the spare room but decides to let them sleep. They’ll all be up for school soon enough. Funny to think that Katy’s a couple of years younger than Jade, what with her being Jade’s auntie. Still, a higgledy-piggledy family is better than a broken family, and by tonight, once Nicky gets home, they’ll be a whole higgledy-piggledy family once again. Graham sounded bright on the phone. Said he’d sorted himself out, just like he’d promised, that it had taken him almost until the end of his sentence but that this Richard chap he’d been talking to had really helped him.
‘Mum,’ he’d said. ‘I’m ready.’
Fingers crossed.
Jim is in the hall with his coat already on.
‘About ti— Wow!’ He smiles up at her, making her feel self-conscious. He hands her a lukewarm cup of tea. ‘It was hot when I made it. You look beautiful, by the way.’
Carol downs the tea in one go.
‘Are we right?’ she says.
‘You’re a cheeky bastard, you are. I’ve been waiting for half an hour.’
She chuckles and puts on her coat, opens the front door. ‘This is it,’ she says, something like hope fluttering in her chest. She waits for Jim to pull the door shut. ‘Seems strange going without our Katy.’
‘She’ll be fine. She’s got Tracy to look after her. Did you eat something?’
‘Couldn’t face breakfast.’ Carol looks back at the house. ‘Did you hear me tell Tracy where to
find the fish fingers?’
‘Look,’ says Jim, ‘she might not be the sharpest tool in the box but she can find a packet of fish fingers in a three-drawer freezer.’
‘What about the heating? Can she work our gas fire?’
‘She’ll be fine. Stop worrying.’
‘I’m not.’ Carol looks in her bag and finds her mobile phone. She’s not sure where the on switch is. She needs her reading glasses. ‘I’ll put this on, shall I?’
Jim unlocks and opens the passenger door for her. ‘You can, but she won’t ring you, because you never have it on.’
‘But nobody ever calls me on it.’ She gets into the car.
Jim is laughing. What’s he laughing at?
Fifty-Three
Richard
1993
Richard sits on a camping chair, sipping tea in front of the fire. There is white paint on his old cord trousers, on his hands, on his socks and, he suspects, in his hair. There’s white paint on the carpet too, where it escaped the ground sheet, but he doesn’t care. The carpet is destined for the tip anyway, and actually, thinking about it, he will have to pull it up tomorrow if he wants to freshen up the skirting boards. Why didn’t he think of that before? He’s done it in the wrong order. Ah well, it’s a learning curve.
The hot tea washes down his dry throat. It tastes absolutely delicious – almost shockingly so. Like nectar, as the saying goes, and he realises it’s because he’s been painting for over three hours without a break. He’s worked up a labourer’s thirst. He wonders if this is the first time he’s ever tasted tea as good as this, ever worked so hard for it. It seems worth it. And he’s enjoyed stretching his arms, clambering up and down the stepladder, the physical effort, the concentration that stills the mind, the earning of the break. He’s enjoying sitting here now, feeling the ache after the stretch, thrilled to bits with how transformed the room is and by the hot, sweet taste of this magnificent tea. But most of all he is enjoying the buzz of finally doing something, something that isn’t perhaps the most dramatic thing in the world but that to him feels seismic, life-changing. As if to reward him with its heartfelt agreement, the sun drifts out from behind a cloud, bathing the room in warm yellow light.
The house clearance people came yesterday. They took everything. Everything. Richard has only this camping chair and a blow-up camp bed upstairs. It is all he needs until he has finished painting the house, and, frankly, it is utterly liberating to be without any real material possessions. The once brown and beige floral living room, now so bright in the morning sun, adds to his feeling of lightness. He chose soft cream for the walls, white for the ceiling. He wasn’t up to stripping the wallpaper – he didn’t know where to begin – so he has contented himself with painting over it. It might not be what you’re meant to do, but it looks brilliant, just brilliant, and it’s his house now. Maybe he’ll lay a wooden floor, throw on a rug, like that picture he saw in the magazine Viv showed him. Viv will have some ideas. She said she’d come over at the weekend and help him decide. She has some catalogues, she said, one from the new Swedish place, which she says has the nicest, freshest-looking things she’s ever seen, and great prices. When the time comes, she said she might even come with him and help him choose. The idea warms him.
He drains his tea. One more coat on the back wall and he can move on to the kitchen. By next Thursday he hopes to have the whole of the downstairs gleaming like a grin.
‘Come on, Richy-Rich,’ he says to himself, standing and rolling out his shoulders. ‘Time to crack on, you lazy get.’
* * *
The following Thursday, on his way into the castle, Richard strokes his chin. It is still strange to feel bare skin where his beard used to be, where it was until yesterday afternoon, when Raymond, the same barber his father used to take him to as a kid, shaved the whole lot off with a cut-throat razor and clouds of white foam. After which, delighted with his new youthful appearance, Richard called in at the pub. He only meant to have one for the road but ended up in conversation with a man called Doug, who turned out to be a primary school teacher on his way home from work and who insisted on buying him a pint. And then, of course, Richard knew it would be rude not to buy him one back. By the time he left, at almost nine p.m., he had made a loose arrangement to see Doug there the following week, the thought of which makes him smile now as he makes his way through the myriad doors and locks of the prison.
At the top of the stairs, he steels himself. His appearance has changed dramatically; it will not go unnoticed. Sure enough, as he steps into the office, there are whoops of appreciation from Viv and the gang. Someone wolf-whistles. He thinks he hears relief in the mix.
‘That’s right swish, is that, like a film star,’ Viv says, looking about her. ‘Who does he look like?’
‘I know,’ says the woman with the black hair whose name Richard has forgotten. ‘That one off ER.’
‘That’s it,’ says Viv, clicking her fingers. ‘Whatsisname. Thingio. Him.’ She smiles, as if satisfied at getting to the bottom of it. ‘He’s got two eyes and one nose, hasn’t he?’ At this, she laughs so much she has to hold her own nose to stop herself from choking.
Richard laughs along but doesn’t try to think of a comeback. It will doubtless fall flat, and it’s enough that they know he can take a joke. He rolls his eyes, waves and takes his leave.
On the stairs, Viv shouts after him. He waits while she catches up, surprisingly nimble in her little white pumps.
‘I’ve got to go to D Wing anyway,’ she says. ‘I may as well chum you along. Still on for Saturday?’
‘Absolutely.’ As they continue down the stairs together, he tells her of his decorating progress. ‘It’s not perfect,’ he says, ‘but it looks so much better and now I can’t wait to get it all done.’
They reach the bottom of the stairs, where Viv must cross the courtyard and he must turn back to head down the corridor and up another flight of stairs.
‘Well, I’ll love you and leave you,’ she says. She makes to go but hesitates. ‘Are you all right, chuck? You seem a bit …’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Do you remember Graham?’
Viv nods; her eyes widen a fraction. ‘Of course. Seagull man.’
Richard smiles. ‘The very one. Yes, so this’ll be the last time I see him.’
‘You hope.’ She chuckles.
‘Quite. I don’t know, I guess it seems strange that they’re just released like that – you know – like … well, like seagulls.’
‘I know. And some of them have got nothing, you know, absolutely nothing. And no one.’
Richard frowns. ‘I guess I’m just thinking it’s a shame we can’t bring anything in with us – you know, by way of a parting gift.’ He’d wanted to buy Graham his own copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull to take home, but it’s against regulations to bring anything into the prison. He could, he supposes, send him one in the post.
Viv places a hand on the door handle. ‘They don’t expect anything. Anyway, your new look is present enough.’ She punches him lightly on the arm. ‘It’ll give him a laugh, if nothing else.’ She unlocks the door and is still mugging when she steps out. ‘Seriously, though, you look really great. Ten years younger, at least.’
‘Thanks.’ He raises a hand in a wave. ‘Viv?’
She pops her head back round the door. ‘Yeah?’
‘I was thinking of going into town after work for some new shoes.’ He is thinking of next week, of Doug.
Viv looks lost for a moment, before she slaps her own forehead. ‘And you need a personal shopper?’
‘I don’t want to impose. But I’d buy you dinner afterwards.’
Her face breaks into a wide smile.
‘Or not,’ he says. ‘If you have to rush home, it’s not a problem, forget I said it.’
‘Richard, shut up, will you? Bloody hell, I can’t get a word in edgeways with you sometimes, you gabby bastard. I’ll see you in the office when you finish and we’ll wander down together,
all right? They’ve got some nice ones in Dolcis. Pink cowboys boots … Just kidding. And you don’t need to buy me dinner – we can go halves.’ With that, her head disappears behind the door and she is well and truly gone.
* * *
In the chapel, Richard takes his seat and waits, stroking his naked chin. He has the impression of touching someone else’s face. It is warm, slightly oily, with the merest abrasion of growth beneath. It would be good to touch someone else’s face, he thinks, and have someone touch his.
Graham’s whistling reaches him from the corridor. After a second or two, he appears at the doorway and makes an exaggerated show of stopping, holding the door frame as if for support.
‘Fuck me,’ he says loudly. ‘It’s Clark fucking Kent.’
Richard laughs – a proper laugh that requires a small recovery afterwards. ‘Graham, I’m going to miss your sense of humour.’
‘Nothing humorous about it. Jesus – sorry – Christ – sorry – but God – ah, shit, sorry – you look young.’
Richard ignores the trio of blasphemy. ‘Try not to sound quite so surprised.’
‘I knew you were young underneath.’ Graham sits down, eyes still wide.
‘What about you then?’ Richard asks, keen to divert the glare. ‘You’re the one with the old-man beard now. Not tempted to shave?’
Like his hair, Graham’s beard is thick and black, although his beard is flecked with a lighter, nutty brown.
‘Too right,’ he says. ‘I’m shaving it next Thursday morning.’
‘Shaven for release, like a lamb to the … to the summer.’ Richard winces at his almost faux pas. ‘Good idea.’
Graham is still grinning, his shoulders wide and straight against the back of the chair. He looks away and back again. ‘I can’t get over it, like. I keep expecting you to pull your shirt off and fly out the window in your blue tights. You look so different.’