by Martina Cole
Susan sighed happily.
‘Maybe, maybe not. Still, it’s all coming together now, ain’t it?’
Rhianna smiled.
‘You’ll get out, Susan. I have a good feeling about it.’
‘So do I actually. I finally feel able to look forward, you know?’
Rhianna knew exactly what she meant and felt a fleeting moment of jealousy.
‘I know exactly how you feel. Believe me, I know.’
Geraldine was surprised at the change in Matty. She looked thinner, if that were possible, and red-faced, as if she had been running, which was definitely impossible in this place.
‘Hello, Matty. I take it they’ve explained everything?’
She nodded.
‘The girl picked a fight. It happens in these places, Geraldine. I had to defend myself.’
Geraldine wasn’t sure about that.
‘Well, anyway, we have an appeal date. Four weeks’ time, the third of November. How’s that?’
Matty smiled, her face disarmingly pretty in the early-afternoon sunlight.
‘Great. I can’t wait to be out.’
Her voice was like a little girl’s. Geraldine swallowed down the feeling of revulsion that swept over her every time she talked to this particular client.
‘You should be fine, going by the advance press coverage. I think the climate’s right now. People are interested in battered wives. It’s political. Laws are being brought in and enforced. I think you have a good chance of coming home.’
Matty smiled again.
‘Good. Because this place is starting to get me down. I want to put Victor and everything that happened behind me. Start a new life.’
‘It’ll be hard to put it behind you when your book is published, won’t it?’
Geraldine couldn’t resist the jibe and Matty shrugged again. Even more nonchalantly than usual.
‘If people want to hear my story, why shouldn’t I tell it? Other women may be inspired to leave similar domestic arrangements before it’s too late. I left it too late and look what happened to me. A cautionary tale is just what’s needed, don’t you think?’
She could justify anything, Geraldine knew, and let the matter drop. But it hung in the air between them and made the atmosphere heavy.
‘I’m representing Susan Dalston as well,’ Geraldine said to change the subject. ‘Did you know?’
Matty’s face paled and she pushed her hair back from her forehead in an action Geraldine now knew meant she was angry.
‘No. No one bothered to enlighten me on that fact. Least of all my own counsel.’
‘Come on, Matty, calm down. I have many clients, you know that. I always deal with women in trouble. Which is exactly what Susan Dalston is. Her children need her. She needs them. If ever a woman shouldn’t have been locked up in the first place it’s Susan Dalston. I mean, this was serial abuse of the worst kind. I know, I can prove it. Get her out and back home again. I’m looking forward to it. I liked her from the word go.’
Matty didn’t answer. She was listening to the noise outside. It was visiting time and she could hear the chatter of husbands and boyfriends, kids and mums. She had had one visit since she had been in prison that wasn’t a legal consultation and that was a visit she could have done without.
‘Before I forget - a woman rang asking to see me about you. Angela something or other. But she didn’t turn up. Do you know what it might be about?’
Matty’s expression didn’t change. She knew Geraldine had deliberately slipped this in to gauge her reaction.
‘Could be a journalist. I don’t know any Angelas off hand. Why, did it seem important?’
That innocent look was back. Geraldine shrugged.
‘No. It just seemed strange, that’s all. I thought it might be someone who could help you.’
‘The only person who can help me is you, Geraldine. You’re all I’ve got.’
‘Plus the women’s groups and the feminists. Let’s not forget them.’
Matty looked at a point above her head.
‘Oh, what do they know really? You’re the important one, aren’t you? Without you I’d have been left to rot in here. No, this is all down to you, Geraldine. I can’t tell you how I feel.’
She had the distinct impression that Matty was laughing at her and knew she could do absolutely nothing about it. Everyone was entitled to a fair trial, whatever the personal feelings of their counsel. Geraldine knew inside herself that Matty’s release could be the forerunner to a lot of women receiving true justice for crimes they’d been forced to commit. The Susan Dalstons and so many others like her. So why did she feel no sympathy with this woman? Why did she feel she was making a big mistake in representing her? Everyone else thought Matty was wonderful, the dream client, intelligent, witty, articulate, very attractive.
Yet privately she felt sure that Matilda Enderby was a cold-blooded, murdering bitch. Geraldine was depressed again.
Matty always did that to her.
Susan saw her daughter and her friend sitting waiting in the drab visiting room and grinned like a Cheshire cat. Roselle hugged her until a PO forced them apart. They sat at the rickety table and Wendy went to get coffees and a Coke so they had a few minutes alone together.
‘You look bleeding fantastic, Roselle. Really great. And not a day older.’
Susan’s voice was full of admiration.
‘You don’t look too bad yourself, girl. You ain’t half done some weight.’
Susan sighed.
‘Better than a health farm in here. I wish I’d been banged up years ago, I’d never have got so bleeding fat.’
But she was pleased with the compliment and it showed.
‘I’m only ten stone now. Christ, I feel like Twiggy.’
Susan’s fine features were once more in evidence and although she would never be beautiful she was certainly attractive and this pleased Roselle no end.
‘How’s Wendy seem?’ she asked her friend anxiously.
‘Much better. I think knowing you might be coming home is a real help. Oh, and I heard through the grapevine the adoption’s being rushed through.’ Roselle raised her hand to shut Susan up before she started. ‘Geraldine will deal with that, it’s all part of the process of getting you out - the fact you was such a brilliant mother. So stop worrying. I have the dosh to hold them up in court until the year two thousand if necessary.’
Susan felt herself relax.
‘You’re a good mate, Roselle. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. If nothing else at least Barry gave me the kids, and in a funny way he gave me you and all, didn’t he?’
Roselle grasped her hand tightly.
‘And he gave me you, and through you Wendy. I’m so fond of you both now, you’re more to me than family. Except for my Joe, of course.’
‘Of course. How is he?’
Roselle went into overdrive about her son and his merits and Susan listened gleefully. Her cup was running over. Seeing Roselle in the flesh made up for everything, such was the power of their friendship.
A few of the women in the visiting room stared in disbelief at Susan Dalston and Roselle Digby. Susan had not realised how well known Roselle was and saw now why her friend didn’t want to visit her before. She was a curiosity to them all. A well-known face who had never had so much as a parking ticket. Ivan’s woman she was often called, even though anything between them had been over years ago.
Susan quite enjoyed the stir they created.
‘Cor, if I’d realised, I’d have made you visit me before. I can do with all the help I can get in this place.’
A female prisoner stopped by the table and nodded hello to Susan and Roselle. Wendy brought the coffee back and said delightedly, ‘They’re all talking about you up by the coffee bar. Nice things of course.’
Roselle sipped the coffee and grinned.
‘Would they dare say anything else?’ Then, changing the subject abruptly, she asked Susan the burning question. ‘Wh
at do you think of Geraldine O’Hara then?’
‘I think she’s great, Roselle. She’s also looking after Matty, me cell mate.’
‘Give you more in common that will. Geraldine seems to think you getting out is a foregone conclusion.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ll wait and see. But even I have a good feeling. I daren’t get too excited, though. That’s fatal in this place. You have to think of the worst that can happen. Anything over and above that is a bonus.’
Wendy listened to them both intently.
‘Tell them the truth, Mum. Let’s get it out once and for all.’
Susan looked at her daughter and said stiffly, ‘They’ll get enough of the truth, love, to last them a lifetime. We don’t need to involve you in any of this.’
Wendy looked into her face.
‘You still can’t see it, can you, Mum? Maybe I need the truth to be told so people can understand me a bit better. So I can understand meself. Try and make a bit of sense of my life.’
Susan looked into the lovely troubled face and said seriously, ‘There’s nothing to make sense of, love. You were caught up in something that wasn’t within your control. I know, I was there meself for years. Your dad was a user, of people and of things. I can see that now. I lie in that bunk at night and wonder at how much power I let him have over us all. I was a bloody fool. I should have gone on the trot years before. Let him stew in his own juice. But I never. I sat it out. And for what, eh? For this. Now, if you open your mouth, you kick it all back in my face. Bear that in mind, love.’
Wendy stared at her for long moments.
‘This ain’t about you now, Mum. Even I can see that much. This is about blame, about who did this and who did that. Well, I should take my part of that blame. I should start to accept responsibility for what I did.’
Roselle watched the mother and her nearly grown daughter and was amazed how they were reacting to each other. It was as if they were going to fight.
‘Calm down, you two.’
Her voice broke into their study of one another.
Susan leaned forward in her chair and hissed, ‘You tell no one, you hear me? You do and I’ll call you a liar. Say it’s all so you could get me home and they’ll believe that, mate. They will.’
Something was going on and Roselle was not sure what it was.
‘Ain’t I got enough on me plate with Rosie and the fucking Simpsons, Barry’s school work and Alana’s unhappiness, without you starting now and all? I don’t need this, Wend. I really don’t need this on top of everything else.’
Susan’s voice was shaking with emotion.
‘It would mean a retrial, all sorts of trouble, so let it go. Please, just let it go and then when I get home I’ll make it all all right. I promise you, darlin’.’
Wendy got up from the table and walked out to the reception area where the public toilets were.
Susan took one look at Roselle’s expression and said, ‘This is between me and her.’
Roselle nodded gently.
‘So it would seem. But like Geraldine said, a closed courtroom might do the trick if you’d only see as much. What he did to her would get you a walking sentence straight off and, whether you want to hear this or not, Wendy needs to help, to make her feel better inside. Can’t you see that, Susan? That child is full of guilt and remorse over what happened. She needs to make things right inside herself. To make herself feel better.’
Susan didn’t answer her. She was miles away. Back in her little house looking once more at the dead body of her husband.
‘She ain’t a child any more, Sue. She’s a woman. Barry saw to that. Now it’s up to you to let her know that you respect her as an adult. As someone who can make her own decisions. It happened to her, Sue. It happened to her, not you. She has to be able to sort it out herself or Barry’s won again, hasn’t he? He’s still controlling you all.’
Susan didn’t answer her.
There was nothing she felt she could say.
Wendy came back. She smiled gently at her mother.
‘I miss you, Mum, and I have to get myself better inside. I won’t if you keep protecting me. I need the truth to come out. Need people to know what happened.’
‘No one needs to know all about that, darlin’.’
Wendy looked her mother full in the face.
‘That night he told me I wasn’t his. He said me granddad was me father. I asked you about that once and you never answered me. I need to know, Mum. I need to know what I am and where I come from. No matter how bad it is. Nothing could be worse than what I feel now. Every day when I get up, every morning when I lie there trying to get meself together to face another fucking day full of guilt and hatred.’
Susan shook her head. Her voice was dragged from the depths of her being as she answered her daughter.
‘Barry was your father all right. I wish I could tell you differently, believe me.’
Wendy nodded.
‘I thought so. But I had to be sure. You can see why, can’t you?’
Susan nodded sadly.
‘Of course I can, love. This is why I want it all over. So you don’t have to think about it ever again. Won’t have to face any consequences except the knowledge of what happened. And even that will fade in time, I promise you. I’ll make it right, I promise, heartcake.’
Wendy sighed heavily.
‘You can try but nothing can change the truth, Mum. You can dress it up, rearrange it, but the truth is still the truth whatever you say.’
She looked steadily at Roselle.
‘I killed me dad. Not her. It was me. I killed him with the brandy bottle. He was already dead before she got home. Weren’t he, Mum?’
Susan stared at her cold cup of coffee and didn’t answer.
There was nothing else to say.
Chapter Thirty-One
Roselle sat in her flat and sipped a large brandy. She was still in a state of extreme shock. Why had she never sussed it out? Why had she never guessed it was Wendy who’d killed Barry?
But then, why would she think that? Why would anyone think that? Wendy was a child, a victim.
Now it left them with a dilemma of Olympian proportions.
If Wendy let the truth out, and it seemed that was what she wanted, the girl could be left in a much worse position than she seemed to realise. She would be put away, as her mother was, but in her case detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. She was too young for a trial and too young for prison so it would be a secure unit somewhere.
Detained indefinitely.
Roselle walked through to the bedroom and stared down at the sleeping girl. It was as if admitting what had happened had taken the weight of the world off Wendy’s shoulders. She was visibly more relaxed now.
Even Mrs Eappen had sensed something and allowed her to spend the night at the flat without too much aggravation. For the first time in what seemed like years Mrs Eappen had no Dalstons on her premises. The other three were spending the night with their aunt. Roselle had heard the relief in her voice at that and had smiled knowingly.
The old bitch would be talking about them all now, it seemed they gave her the only topic of conversation she had these days.
The murderer’s children.
What if she found out that the daughter was the real perpetrator of the crime? She’d love that.
Roselle sipped at her brandy again.
Poor Susan, innocent all that time. Sitting in prison, listening to all that shit and knowing she shouldn’t even be there.
Did Wendy really know what her mother had done for her? What she had prevented from happening to her child? Roselle would have done the same for her son, she knew that. But she couldn’t believe Susan had never once hinted at it to her.
Then, Susan was shrewd. She knew that a secret once divulged lost its mystery, making it easier to reveal again and again and again.
Which was what they feared now from Wendy. Now the truth was finally out, would the girl feel the urge to shout it from
the rooftops?
Roselle went back to the lounge and phoned Ivan.
‘I need a number, as soon as possible.’
She smiled into the phone and said politely, ‘Of course I know what time it is, Ivan. But fuck it, this is an emergency!’
When she replaced the receiver she settled herself on the sofa and lit a cigarette. This was going to be a hell of a long night.
Susan lay on her bunk. She was in turmoil. Wendy had blown everything wide open. Even though she trusted Roselle the fact was the story was out now. The truth once told could be a terrifying thing. At times it could do far more damage than lies.
She’d known that all her life. Her mother and father had taught her well. She rested an arm across her eyes and sighed.
Matty slipped from her bunk and knelt beside her.
‘I thought you wasn’t talking to me, Matty. You’ve hardly said a word, have you, since I came back from me visit?’
Matty didn’t answer her at once and in the half light Susan could see her eyes, bright and luminescent.
‘So, not content with taking my friends from me, you also want my barrister? That’s what I get for being nice to you, for being your friend.’
Matty’s voice was so low and sweet, Susan wondered if she had heard her correctly.
‘When I think of what I have to put up with in here, sharing a cell with someone I wouldn’t even employ to clean my house. Yet I’m expected to help you, be nice to you. So I take you under my wing. I try to help you and you’re just like all the others - a user, an ignorant user.’
‘You what? What you on about?’
This was the last thing Susan Dalston needed tonight.
Matty grinned.
‘Oh, I know your game all right. I know people like you, Susan. You’re the takers of this world. I give you my friendship and then, like everyone else, you abuse it. Use it for your own ends. But you won’t get away with it this time. This time I’m going to nip it in the bud. I’ll kill you before I let you take everything from me.’
Susan didn’t answer her. She could feel something cold against her throat and guessed it was some kind of weapon.