‘Yep.’ Kelly nodded. That was exactly what she was saying.
‘What I’m asking you to think about, Kelly, is what if you had reasons to stay, whether others thought those reasons were valid or not. They could be self-imposed reasons, like guilt or duty. Or practical reasons: nowhere else to go, poverty, no roof over your head…’
The girls stared at her. Kate realised that many if not all of them had themselves faced poverty and homelessness; these aspects of life were accepted, to be expected, even. The bar was set so low. She decided to change tack.
‘What if you had kids; what if you needed to stay to take care of them?’ She pictured Lydia and Dominic at seven and eight, tucking them into bed, kissing their foreheads, switching on their night lights.
‘You’d have to be some sort of moron to have kids with a bloke that’s no good in the first place!’ Kelly wasn’t done.
Jojo piped up, looking directly at Kelly. ‘I had kids with someone like that. Trouble was he was all right at first, suckered me right in, but he turned out to be a really bad man, class A shit, a liar, total bastard.’ Jojo instinctively wrapped her arms around her torso, administering a self-soothing hug.
Kate smiled at Jojo. They had more in common than the girl could ever have guessed. She thought she might have found a kindred spirit.
‘Did you stay because of the kids?’
‘No, I stayed because of the drugs. My kids were in care within a year of him moving in. I don’t see them no more.’
Jojo spewed out her words with bravado. But Kate saw the flash behind her pupils and the flush in her cheeks at the mention of her children. She had noticed the way Jojo unconsciously and momentarily cupped the left breast that had fed those children. It told her she would have loved to have been a good mum had circumstances been a little kinder.
Kate looked at the book in front of her: ‘Frailty, thy name is woman…’
She sat in the chair at the front of the class, aware that all eyes were upon her. It broke her heart, the very idea, the waste. Kate felt a sense of futility; what would teaching these girls about Shakespeare achieve? Would it bring back Jojo’s kids, help Kelly reach stability? Of course not. Was it more about her stupid, self-indulgent desire to teach?
Kate was aware she had to do something. She swallowed hard and closed the text. Her voice was soft.
‘Sometimes it’s easy to judge others in the cold light of day or to say how you would react in a certain situation, but I think the one thing we all have in common is that we know how hard it is to make the right decision when your mind is so scrambled with tiredness, fear or drugs. We judge Ophelia just like people will be judging us, all of us, and they will probably never know what it’s like to walk in our shoes. I know that I can’t even make a cup of tea without crying when I’m feeling a bit lost, when I’m that worn down, let alone make a good choice. I guess what I’m saying is that life is not always straightforward or easy, but I don’t have to tell you lot that.’
There was a faint ripple of laughter, but generally there was a hush as each considered the bad choices that had led them to that strip-lit classroom in Marlham’s women’s prison.
The scrape of metal chair legs against the floor made everyone turn their heads. Janeece had been sitting at the back of the class, listening intently and making copious notes as she always did. Kate had thrown her an olive branch when she had first arrived and Janeece, who had never known support of any kind, had grasped it with both hands.
She stood slowly, tugging at the hem of her grey T-shirt, trying to cover her ample stomach. Then she addressed the class, an act which took all her courage.
‘I think sometimes leaving is the easy choice. It takes courage not to bugger off. It must be harder to stay in a situation that is scary or horrible than to go. My mum left as soon as anything got tough. She kept leaving until one day she just went for good. I was six. Things were quite shitty when she was there, but they got a whole lot more shitty when she’d gone. It would have taken balls to stay and sort the mess out. Ophelia says, “we know what we are, but know not what we may be”. I think this means that we can all make good choices if we try and that we can be whatever we want to. It’s up to us.’
Kate beamed. If she had given Janeece the confidence to stand up in public and quote Shakespeare then maybe her role wasn’t so self-indulgent after all.
She and Janeece had come a long way since their first encounter. At the time, Kate had been just a month into her sentence. She was happy that her first weeks had passed without event. She had managed to keep to a routine of sorts and was sleeping all right despite the night-time noise levels.
She was sitting at the large table in the communal area on the ground floor as she did most afternoons. Most of the women were either clustered around the television, playing pool or knitting, but as usual she had her nose in a book. That day it was Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree. Her hair was still neat in its immaculate bob; years of cutting it herself to keep it tidy and pretty would certainly pay off in here. She felt a prod in her back and swung round to face an enormous, acned teenager of mixed race.
‘Yes, can I help you?’
The girl’s response was swift and hostile.
‘You is in my seat!’ she snarled through gritted teeth.
‘Oh, right, and who might you be?’
Kate had years of practice at hiding fear and remaining calm; she knew it best not to rise to any provocation. Her heart beat loudly against her ribs nonetheless. Was this going to be her first sticky moment? She smiled at the girl as though she were engaging a lost six-year-old she had found wandering alone in the local supermarket.
‘Janeece.’
‘Well, Janeece, it is very nice to meet you. I’m Kate.’
She held out her hand.
The girl reluctantly unfurled her own fingers and extended her palm. Kate shook it and Janeece quickly pulled away, not used to physical contact.
‘Firstly, Janeece, I think that this seat belongs to anyone that wants it, and secondly, you say, “you are in my seat” and not “you is in my seat”; do you hear the difference?’
Struck dumb, Janeece appraised the middle-aged woman who looked like a teacher and spoke like Mary Poppins. She nodded.
Kate continued. ‘I’m just about to start Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy. Have you read it?’
Janeece shook her head.
‘Nah. I don’t do readin’.’
‘Well, that is a great shame, Janeece. You are missing out on a million different worlds that you could visit, which when your own world consists of these grim walls, might be a good thing to do. Why is it that you don’t “do” reading?’
The girl stared at her and, without responding, bit her bottom lip, angry, embarrassed and ashamed. Her likely response floated into Kate’s mind as surely as if Janeece had spoken the words out loud: ‘Because I’m not very good at it. I don’t read because I can’t read very well, I don’t know all the words…’
‘Did your mother or your teacher never read you a book? My daughter used to love that.’
Janeece shook her head slightly, to indicate ‘no’ and also to banish the image of her mother, the slapping flat hand with the long nails that scratched, her voice like a machine gun in her head: ‘You are a fat, useless piece of shit; you are nothing and you will always be nothing, just like your shit of a father.’
‘Would you like me to read it to you?’
Kate showed her the cover.
‘Wha’?’
Janeece pulled her head back on her shoulders. Was this woman mad? Did she look like a baby that wanted story time?
‘I said, would you like me to read it to you? It’s a lovely story, I think you’ll like it! But, Janeece, be warned, once you fall in love with Hardy it can become a bit of an addiction. We would then have to progress to Far from, and Tess of course.’
Without speaking, Janeece sloped around the table and pulled out the chair opposite Kate’s.
‘How much of it are you goin’ to read?’
Maybe she would listen, just for a bit.
‘Oh, Janeece, I am going to read all of it, cover to cover, word for word; all of it! Not eighty or so words here and there, but all of it and then, if I like, I might go right back to the beginning and read it all over again!’
‘But you’d already know what ’appens!’
Janeece shook her head as though it was Kate that had misunderstood the concept of book reading.
‘Oh, I’ve already read it many times. But that’s the lovely thing about books; they are never the same twice. Every time I read this story I picture something different, learn something new, and the ending always takes me slightly by surprise. It’s like heading to a particular destination, but taking a different route each time you go. That way you see and feel new things each time you travel, and when you arrive, it’s always a bit of a mystery quite how you ended up there! So, Janeece, would you like to go on this journey with me?’
The girl considered this.
‘Awright. But most people in here don’ mix with me cos I’m dangerous.’
‘Well, I am not most people and I think we can all be a bit dangerous, when provoked. Now, are you sitting comfortably, as they say?’
‘What you in for?’
‘Janeece, are we going to start this book or not?’
‘Yeah, but I wanna know what you’s in for. I wanna know who I’m mixin’ wiv.’
‘I don’t know why it is important, but if you insist. I am here because I killed someone. I stabbed my husband with a very sharp knife and I watched him bleed to death. I just sat and watched until he gurgled his last breath. He tried to ask for help, tried to beg, but I didn’t listen to his pleas and I certainly wasn’t going to help him.’
Kate was trying to earn her stripes.
‘Why d’you do that?’
The girl was all ears. Bingo!
Kate leant across the table and whispered conspiratorially, ‘He wasn’t very nice to me, Janeece.’
Janeece had nothing more to say.
Kate began:
To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.
* * *
Remembering the day she introduced Janeece to reading always gave Kate a small swell of pride. Yes, she was in here, her skin slowly greying from the lack of fresh air and good veg, but that really didn’t matter in the great scheme of things. What mattered was each small difference she could make to someone else’s life.
Her cell door was ajar and Kate became aware of a presence in the doorway. Janeece’s Herculean form stood blocking the light, a piece of A4 paper clutched in her hand.
‘Is everything all right, dear?’
It was rare for the girl to come to Kate’s cell; the two usually met in the reading room or in class. Kate couldn’t accurately read her expression.
‘I did it, Kate! I bloody did it!’
Janeece’s tears clogged her nose and throat; she hadn’t cried in years. Her childhood had taught her that crying was futile, but this was different, these were tears of joy.
Kate jumped up, knowing instantly what she was talking about.
‘Oh, my love! Well? What did you get?’
The excitement bubbled from her.
‘I got an A star in English and an A in French and a B in Maths. I did it, Kate! I can’t believe it, but I bloody did it!’
Kate rushed forward and took the girl into her arms, cradling her bulk as best she could. She spoke into her scalp.
‘I am so proud of you, Janeece! I really am!’
‘I find it hard, but that won’t stop me. I’m going to be the very best that I can, even if it isn’t easy.’
‘Nothing worth having ever is, love, and when you leave here, Janeece, you have a very bright future. It’s like you said: if you try, you can be whatever you want to be. It’s up to you now. All the hours you have worked, it will all pay off. You have conquered the hardest part, believing in yourself! Look at how much you have changed, how far you have come. The rest should be a walk in the park and you won’t be alone. I’ll be there for you.’
‘It’s all because of you, Kate. You changed my life, an’ it’s all because of you. I had nothing and now I have something. I’m gonna go to university and I will be someone and it is all because of you.’
She whispered into her teacher’s shoulder, the words inaudible to anyone else, but Kate heard them, loud and clear.
Ten years ago
‘Morning, Mrs Brooker.’
‘Good morning, Mrs Bedmaker.’
The boys spoke simultaneously – only a knowing ear could decipher or distinguish between the two greetings. Both boarders smiled through their fashionably long fringes. Kathryn had much preferred it when regulations had required boys’ hair to be worn above the collar and over the ear, feeling that this better prepared them for the conformity of the workplace. But she knew enough about teenagers to keep such thoughts to herself.
The two ambled along in no hurry to get to wherever they were heading, vigorously bumping shoulders in order to send the other skittering off the path, which made them laugh. If one were to topple over, that would be hilarious. With grubby, dog-eared books in hands, shirts hanging outside their trousers, ties a little too loose about the neck and jersey sleeves rolled up, it told her all she needed to know about how they viewed her.
Had it been Mark or one of the stricter masters outside that morning, they would have been tucking and smoothing, hiding and straightening. Not for her, though; no such courtesy for her.
She smiled at them: two sweet boys. They had been at Mountbriers since they were in single digits and she had watched them grow into these teenagers full of life, fun and promise. As ever, a flurry of emotions swirled through her: she was happy that they saw her as ‘soft’ and felt relaxed in her presence, but sad that they felt able to mock her by calling her ‘Mrs Bedmaker’, probably considering her too slow to notice. They were wrong; she always noticed. Always.
She removed the dolly pegs from her mouth and smiled as though oblivious.
‘Good morning, boys! Lovely day today. On your way to lessons?’
They nodded.
‘What have you got first period, anything interesting?’
‘Classics, worse luck. Really boring.’ Luca answered for them both.
None of the trio heard Mark tread the shingle in his soft soles; he approached the washing line at which his wife laboured with something bordering stealth.
‘Boring, Mr Petronatti? Did I hear you refer to a fine and informative subject like Classics as boring?’
‘No, sir! Well, yes, I did, sir! It is, but not when you teach it!’ Luca scrambled to verbal safety using flattery as his rope and harness.
‘I am jolly glad to hear it, Luca. Am I right in assuming that you are both heading back to your boarding house to get properly dressed? Not sure Mr Middy would like to hear of extra duties being handed out to Peters House boys for inappropriate dress, and I’m quite sure he would not have let you come over to main school so shabbily attired. What did you do? Wait until he had finished roll call and then leg it out the back door after breakfast?’
The boys sniggered into their palms; that was exactly what they had done.
‘Thought as much.’ Mark nodded in jest.
Without a word, they turned a hundred and eighty degrees on the path. With straight backs and heads held high, they began retracing their steps.
‘Did you catch the match last night, boys?’ the headmaster shouted at their backs.
They turned their heads as they continued walking away.
‘Oh, sir! It was gu
tting. We were robbed!’
‘Aha! Just goes to show that even with all that fancy Italian footwork, we can still whoop you!’
‘You got lucky, sir, that’s all!’
‘Is that right? And by the way, boys, if you are trying to use the correct football lingo, it is “we was robbed” – only ever “we were robbed” if talking cricket. Got it?’
The two laughed even harder as they quickened their pace towards the dorms. They loved him. All the kids did.
Mark brushed past his wife and wandered towards the rose bed that formed the waist-high perimeter at the back of their private garden. With hands on hips he surveyed the scene in front of him. The house sat as a separate wing to the Upper School, with a large patch of immaculate lawn overlooking the main sports fields. The school itself was Gothic in places, but largely Georgian in construction. The main administration block reminded Kathryn of an oversized doll’s house with its four large, symmetrically placed square windows and panelled front door with lion’s-mouth knocker. She sometimes imagined removing the front completely and moving the little dolls around inside. The classrooms were spread around two main quadrangles and there was a beautiful early-nineteenth-century chapel.
It was one of those fine English establishments whose every angle offered a postcard opportunity and whose character and history were far more impressive than the day-to-day running would have you believe. It had a reputation for being elitist, proud and superior, and with good reason. Mountbriers Academy was a centre of excellence in many subjects, from science to art. Its alumni included high-ranking military men, prime ministers, scientists and medics of note; attending the school therefore carried its own pressures.
The school’s elaborate gold emblem, with eagle wings spreading behind it and the Latin motto beneath – Veritas Liberabit Vos; Truth Shall Set You Free – adorned not only all sports kit and blazers, but also bags, vehicles and even the school bins; everything was similarly stamped. The school did not miss an opportunity to advertise the elitist symbol that set its pupils apart. In Finchbury and its surrounds it was instantly recognisable as a badge of privilege that few could aspire to. Not that the paying parents minded; it was all part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign to keep the fees rolling in.
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