Two Women

by Martina Cole

  ‘I’m on the sleepover tonight so I might be able to sneak in a couple of Benson’s. I’ll see, okay?’

  Wendy nodded once more and when the woman left hugged herself in delight.

  At least she had one worry out of the way. Potter was not doing any more sleepovers. She could relax at last.

  Susan was tired but exhilarated. She had just had her first session in the gym and had been surprised to find she enjoyed it. In her pocket was a letter and it had made her so happy she had to keep touching it, just to remind herself it was really there.

  Going back to her cell, she sat on the bunk and got out the two sheets of paper to read it again.

  She was amazed that Peter White could find it in his heart to drop her a line. The letter had been posted two months previously. It had her name on the envelope and that was all. No prison number. He had just posted it to her care of HMP Holloway. It had been sent on to Durham and now it was back in her hand and making her very happy.

  It was just a friendly note really, asking how she was, how the kids were, and telling her that he was off on the ACT 2 boat to Australia. He liked the meat boats, he said. Especially the new ones. He described it all to her then ended with his address at sea.

  He wanted her to write back to him, he said. They both relied on letters to keep them abreast of things in the outside world so they should write to one another and catch up as often as they could.

  Susan hugged the letter to her breast and sighed. It would be wonderful to write to him, hear his news, hear about the countries he visited. The people he met. She could maybe see the world through his eyes.

  He had put a kiss underneath his name and that had pleased her too. She would write to him after lunch. Tell him the little bit about herself she could and then ask some good questions so he would have something to focus on in his reply.

  PO Billings came in and smiled at her.

  ‘Your brief’s here, Dalston. Get yourself together, you’re to see him now.’

  Susan was startled.

  ‘What’s he want?’

  The woman shrugged.

  ‘You tell me, mate. Now get your arse in gear, he’s already at visit.’

  Susan tidied herself up as best she could and followed the woman from the cell. She was scared now, frightened. She knew this wasn’t a regular visit and she was afraid that something had happened to one of the kids. Her mind was racing as she thought of every bad scenario she could think. Rosie was ill to the point of death. Barry was lying somewhere with broken bones. The list was endless. Even though she knew she was torturing herself her mind would not stop working overtime.

  Every door seemed to take ages to unlock, and everyone seemed to be hindering her progress. When she finally walked into the visiting room, Susan was sweating all over again. Colin was standing by the window, his slim frame outlined by the sunshine outside.

  ‘What’s the matter, is it one of the kids?’

  He could hear the anxiety in her voice at once.

  ‘It’s Wendy. Now before you lose it, she’s okay. Nothing physically wrong with her at all.’

  Susan felt her whole body sag. Sitting in the chair by the table, she sighed heavily.

  ‘What’s happened then?’ Her face was so white she looked like a corpse. Even her lips seemed drained of colour.

  ‘She attacked her social worker with a small blade.’ Colin held up his hand to keep her quiet. ‘Before you start, hear me out, Susan. She’s well, she’s not being nicked, the social worker won’t press charges. She is being punished at the home. It’s no big deal. They cope with this sort of thing all the time there and they understand it. She’s more worried about you finding out which is only natural.’

  Susan was staring at him as if he had just sprouted a long red beard and pixie ears.

  ‘She what! My Wendy did what?’

  She sounded so incredulous, looked so shocked, that Colin felt an urge to laugh at her.

  ‘Look, really, Susan, it sounds much worse than it is. Believe me.’

  She was shaking her head in consternation.

  ‘What did he do to her then? Why did she threaten him?’

  Colin shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? What, she just got a blade and decided to threaten one of the social workers, is that what you’re asking me to believe? That my Wendy just flipped out, is that what you’re saying?’

  She was standing up now. She looked frightening. The PO on duty walked to her and lowered her back into her chair. Susan shrugged her off as if she was an annoying fly or mosquito.

  ‘Calm down, Dalston.’

  ‘Calm down! You’re having a tin bath, you are. How can I calm down? My baby’s in trouble and I can’t even talk to her. Is she in a state? Is she okay? What?’

  Colin closed his eyes in annoyance. This woman was causing him more trouble than anyone in his life before. She would not help herself at all. In fact it even seemed as if she didn’t want to get out. Wanted to stay locked up. On top of all that, she expected him to take care of everything as if he was a blood relative, which thankfully he was not.

  ‘Listen, Susan, will you just calm down?’

  The PO hovered nearby. Susan could smell her deodorant, a thick cloying smell that made her stomach revolt.

  ‘I can’t take much more. I take oath, I can’t take much more of this.’

  Colin went to her and laid a hand gently on her shoulder.

  ‘I understand, Susan, really I do. Why won’t you help yourself now? You could be home with your children sooner than you expect.’

  She pulled away from him, eyes downcast.

  ‘You don’t understand, Colin.’

  He shrugged. ‘I certainly don’t, Susan. You’re right there. I don’t understand you at all.’

  She was quiet for a few moments. She could hear the faint sound of talking and laughter coming from outside the window. A gentle breeze was lifting the curtains as it snaked through the outside bars. Susan stared at it and knew she was trapped. Completely trapped.

  ‘So how’s everything now? Is she really okay?’

  He nodded. But he was angry at her reluctance to help herself and her children. It wasn’t natural, not natural at all. It was obvious how much she loved those kids, so why wouldn’t she help herself get out?

  Matty was two rooms down from Susan, sipping coffee and talking of her appeal as if it was a foregone conclusion.

  Which, so far as she was concerned, it was.

  Her barrister, Geraldine O’Hara, QC, sat opposite her.

  Geraldine was stunning. At thirty-nine years old she had the height and bone structure of a model. Her hair was a thick vibrant red, real auburn with golden highlights. She had mischievous green eyes and full lips. She dressed in power suits, black, tight-skirted and with large shoulder pads, and always had startlingly red lips and nails. She was every inch the eighties woman. Sexy, serious and achieving.

  She was also a well-known feminist and media celebrity. Nicknamed ‘The Man Hater’ by colleagues, she was always chasing women’s rights cases and fighting what seemed to her friends to be lost causes.

  She had no husband, no boyfriend, no lover.

  Not because no one wanted her. Geraldine was deluged with offers from men for whatever she desired, from dinner to bed.

  She didn’t want to know. She was only interested in work, work and more work. Men, she claimed, took your mind off the real things in life, the important things. No one was ever sure if she actually meant that or whether it was one of her jokes. She never bothered to explain.

  Such was the personality of Geraldine O’Hara. But even with her feminist views and dogma she was finding it very hard to like the woman in front of her. Not that she would ever allow that to cloud her judgement.

  From day one Matilda Enderby had given her a bad feeling. Even shaking hands with her seemed to make Geraldine’s flesh creep. She avoided touching Matty as much as she could.
/>
  Matty was talking now and Geraldine forced her mind back to what she was saying.

  ‘Victor was a pervert in many ways, you know. He was up for really kinky sex. Whips, blue films . . . He was really into pain.’

  ‘Inflicting it or receiving it?’ Geraldine’s voice was clipped.

  Matty stared at a point over her head and sighed. Her pretty face was even prettier in repose. Finally, after what seemed an age, she answered.

  ‘Well, both really. But mainly inflicting it.’

  Geraldine stared at the woman before her and half smiled.

  ‘There was nothing found at the house or his office. Nothing pertaining to his sexual habits anyway. I intend to visit the prostitute he used.’ She looked at her legal pad. ‘A Mariah Brewster. See what she has to say this time round. I understand she wasn’t very forthcoming at the last trial?’

  Matty’s face was the picture of an outraged wife’s.

  ‘I hated it when I found out about her, I really did. Can you imagine how that made me feel, knowing he was paying a stranger for sex?’

  Geraldine shrugged.

  ‘Awful as it must have been, if things were that bad surely you must also have been relieved?’

  Matty nodded.

  ‘Of course there was that.’

  Geraldine sipped at her own coffee and lit a cigarette. Taking a deep pull on it, she smiled.

  ‘You look well. You’re bearing up okay?’

  Matty smiled, one of her big sunny smiles that made her look very young and very vulnerable.

  ‘I have to, don’t I? I just keep telling myself it will soon be over and then I can get on with my life again.’

  ‘Can you think of anywhere he might have kept his sex toys, whips, etc? Only your flat and his offices, even his garage, were squeaky clean. Unless we can come up with something we’re not going to be able to use that one. There are no obvious marks on you, are there, that we can have looked at?’

  Matty shook her head hard, her thick hair curling around her face.

  ‘I’m afraid not. I am a good healer.’

  ‘No scars at all?’

  ‘You know there aren’t. But surely the fact he used prostitutes says it all?’

  Geraldine stood up and stretched. Her black wool suit was immaculate. Not even a stray hair ruined its appearance.

  ‘Not necessarily. I mean, according to this Brewster woman he was a, quote, nice man.’

  Before Matty could answer they heard an almighty crash coming from one of the other rooms. A woman’s voice was screaming out obscenities at full blast, and Matty jumped from her seat.

  ‘That sounds like my cellie, Susan Dalston.’

  Geraldine was aghast. ‘You’re celled up with Susan Dalston, the hammer woman?’

  Matty nodded as she walked to the door.

  The duty PO popped her head around and smiled ruefully.

  ‘I’ll have to lock you in while I remove a prisoner. Sorry about this.’

  ‘You rotten, rotten bastards! Rosie . . . I want my Rosie.’

  Susan’s voice was thick with tears. Inside the room they could hear her being restrained, her language telling them exactly what she thought of the officers concerned.

  ‘I’ll kill you, Colin, you fucking wanker!’

  Geraldine instinctively put her hands up to her face.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’

  Matty shrugged and stared at the doorway as if she was going to be able to see through it at any moment.

  ‘I don’t know, Geraldine, I really don’t know.’

  Colin was in a state of pure shock. As he saw Susan being dragged bodily to the floor by three burly POs, he touched his neck and was surprised to find no blood. Although he could feel the raised welts of the scratches she had given him.

  ‘Rosie!’ It was a scream, a constant repetitive scream.

  They were dragging her bodily from the room and out into the hallway. Someone had raised the alarm and Susan’s anguished cries were drowned out by the screaming bells that told all the POs there was a major incident. One was on her radio, calling for a doctor to sedate a prisoner.

  Colin felt overwhelmed with guilt and remorse. He had had to talk to her and fast. What he hadn’t banked on was how the news was going to affect her. He had expected her to be upset but not to try and throttle him with her bare hands. It had been a learning curve if nothing else.

  Susan was disappearing under even more POs as they tried to restrain her. They dragged up the sweatshirt she was wearing and he could see her old bra and heavy breasts.

  All the time she was shouting and screaming her daughter’s name.

  Finally, after what seemed an age, she was sedated by the doctor and even as she fought the effects of the Librium, was gradually calming down. Her one word was incoherent now as she battled to keep her eyes open.

  Mercifully, someone had shut off the alarm. The quiet was as shocking as the noise had been.

  The duty PO, Miss Dobbin, looked at Colin and said sarcastically, ‘Done your good deed for the day, have you?’

  She looked at the others.

  ‘He only calmly told Dalston her youngest child was about to be put up for adoption by the foster parents.’

  She shook her close-cropped head in disbelief.

  ‘Have you any idea how she must have felt, mate?’

  The other women all looked at him and he felt as if he was some kind of low-life slime. But it had not been like that, he had tried to break it to her gently! He opened his mouth to speak and was cut off immediately.

  ‘Blow it out your arse! We’d better get this one to the Muppet wing quick smart. Chances are she’ll be coming round soon and then we’ll have it all over again.’

  When Susan was gone, they unlocked the other doors and all the briefs on legal visits were allowed to leave. Colin knew they must have heard everything that had been said and fiddled with his briefcase as he tried to delay his departure.

  Geraldine saw him. Intrigued, she hung back by the door talking to Matty before she was taken to her cell. When he walked out of the adjacent room she was waiting for him. He recognised her at once. Geraldine O’Hara was not someone who needed to introduce herself.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  He nodded sadly.

  ‘Your neck looks sore and she’s ripped the neck of your jumper.’

  ‘That’s the least of my problems at the moment.’

  Colin looked into a pair of green eyes that made him stop dead in his tracks. He hastily tried to tidy himself up, knowing how scruffy he looked even when he tried to be well turned out. It was a knack he had had since a little boy. It had driven his mother and every serious girlfriend since mad.

  ‘Come on, I’ll get you a cuppa, make you feel better, eh?’

  In the mess, where Geraldine was well known, he received an education. She smiled and talked to everyone, and made a point of asking after children, husbands and families. He was impressed. Legals usually got a hard time in the prisons, especially when they were out to get murderers released. Geraldine seemed as at home in the mess as she would be in an up-market wine bar. She brought the tea to the table and smiled.

  ‘So you’re Susan Dalston’s brief?’

  ‘Colin Jackson. Her former brief probably. I think I might just have got the East End version of the bum’s rush.’

  ‘You can’t blame her. She’d obviously had a shock and lashed out. It happens to us all. I’ve been dragged to the floor before now by a client in Wandsworth.’

  Colin looked her over.

  ‘I’m not surprised if you went in there looking like that.’

  She grinned.

  ‘An armed robber, a few years back. I had to tell him his wife had died of a brain tumour while he was on remand. Strange thing was he got a not guilty and five days after the trial he hung himself.’

  ‘Tragedies one after another sometimes, isn’t it?’

  Geraldine sipped at her tea and lit a Rothman’s.
/>   ‘It’s what we make our money from. Anyway, what’s Susan Dalston really like?’

  ‘What, when she’s not trying to strangle her legal, you mean?’

  She grinned, showing her perfect teeth.

  Colin thought for a few seconds before answering and Geraldine heard the honesty in his words when he finally did.

  ‘She’s a good person. She shouldn’t be in here. She should be with her children. Susan worships them and they worship her. You see, she was beaten mercilessly by her husband for years. He even kicked babies out of her belly and gave her VD. But at the trial they didn’t use any of that because she refused to let them. All she ever said was: “I would do it again if I had the chance.” Her legals certainly weren’t going to put her on the stand for the prosecution to rip her apart so she got guilty and life. I think she only applied for appeal to get back to London, be nearer the kids. She was in Durham before. Today, I had to tell her that social services were going to give her youngest child’s foster parents leave to adopt. She can’t do anything about it. There’s no one else to take the kids on, no family interested. So the powers that be have decided the child should go to the Simpsons.’

  He laughed hollowly.

  ‘That’s when she tried to strangle me.’

  ‘The way you do?’

  Her voice was soft and he smiled at her again.

  ‘Yes, Geraldine. The way you do.

  ‘And on top of all that her eldest daughter threatened a social worker at her children’s home with a blade last night. As you can imagine, that also went down like a ten-ton tart in the back of a Mini Cooper.’

  Geraldine shook her head and sighed.

  ‘What a tale. Some people’s lives are unbearably sad, aren’t they?’

  ‘Unlike the delectable Matty, of course.’

  Geraldine’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘You know her then?’

  Colin grinned. ‘Only by sight. I worked for Victor when I was doing my finals. A bit of pocket money. She was his secretary then, of course. They weren’t married.’

  Geraldine glanced at her watch and bit her lip.

  ‘Look, I really am pushed now. Can we meet later on by any chance?’