‘Kathryn, do try not to use that phrase, please.’
She didn’t know if he was joking.
‘Okay, Roland. The point that I’m making is that it doesn’t really matter to me what people think or what people think they know. I know the truth and one day my kids will know the truth, and that is the only thing that matters to me. The fact is, I am guilty, and I do expect to pay the penalty. You should know that for me there is no punishment that would match the life that I have lived as Mark’s wife. None. I am not afraid, not any more.’
Roland sat down on the opposite side of the rectangular table. He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, clasped his hands behind his head and sighed. His mind flitted to the numerous times that he had sat at the table in the Brookers’ warm family kitchen, Kathryn wearing her floral apron and serving tea from a dotty pot. Mark would hold court and dish out the banter after Sunday service, debating the latest on the cricket while Classic FM hummed quietly behind the delicate clink of china on china.
None of it made any sense. Roland was fully engaged and prepared to listen. It was essential that he listened because he needed to hear. More importantly, he needed to understand.
He ran his hand over his face and finished by raking his scalp and patting his side parting.
‘I have been in this job for a long time and I know that things can happen. Sometimes on the spur of the moment; bad things, accidents—’
‘I think I know where you’re going with this,’ Kathryn interrupted, ‘but I should stop you right there. This was no accident. Not that I planned and plotted or anything like that, but it wasn’t an accident. I intentionally stabbed Mark and as I held the knife in my hand, I wanted to kill him. Thinking about it, I’ve probably wanted to do it for a long time, deep down. So whilst it was “spur of the moment”, as you say, it really wasn’t an accident.’
Roland shook his head; she wasn’t exactly helping herself.
‘I tell you what would help me greatly… why don’t you give me some examples?’
‘Examples?’
‘Yes, anything that will help me to fully comprehend what you have been through. Give me something typical.’
‘Something typical?’
‘Yes. A snapshot, if you like. Paint me a picture to help me get it; tell me exactly how it was. Explain to me what he did to you that was so bad. Enlighten me in simple terms as to what he put you through. You talk of fear and torture, but I need you to make it real. Tell me what he did that made you so afraid. Tell me what he did that pushed you to take his life.’
Roland had abandoned the friendly angle and was now in full copper mode.
‘You want a snapshot?’
‘If you like, yes.’
‘Let me think. A snapshot, things that were typical…’
She paused.
‘It’s difficult to know where to start, how much to give you.’
‘Give me anything, Kathryn, other than the phrase “my husband was a monster”, which is a bit too generic and dramatic to be of real use. Give me something tangible, something that will help me to understand, any detail that will help me explain it to others.’
‘Righto. There is one thing that I would like to say before I start, and that is that I will neither exaggerate nor understate the facts. I have told you and will continue to tell you only the whole truth and nothing but the truth – is that the phrase?’
Roland nodded. ‘Yes, that’s close enough. Ready when you are.’
Kathryn breathed in sharply and used her left thumb to spin her wedding band around her finger. It hadn’t occurred to her to remove it, but she now decided to do so as soon as she was alone. She pushed the gold sliver upwards and briefly pondered the groove it had notched into her finger, wondering how long it would take for the tiny track to disappear. That would mark a big step towards her emancipation.
‘Well, Mark was very fussy, obsessive, really. I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans or trousers, only skirts. Every minute of my day was more or less accounted for; there was very little time for free choice. I could decide what route to take to the supermarket or what veg to prepare for supper, but that was pretty much it. How and where I stored the groceries, when I served dinner, these things were all prescribed. I had to complete a round of chores every day, often pointless and repetitive chores that were designed to exhaust me and break my spirit…’
Roland pinched his eye sockets with his thumb and forefinger. He could just picture those words being repeated in court: ‘I killed my husband because he was a little bit fussy, preferring me in skirts. And I had to do household chores.’ Jesus, if she got away with it, most of the women in the country would have justification. He hoped she had something better than that.
‘At the end of every day, we would climb the stairs together. With only a plaster wall between me and my children, I would kneel at the foot of our bed and Mark would allocate me points according to how badly he thought I had executed the chores that day. Extra points would be added if I had done anything to irritate or anger him.’
She had his attention.
‘These points would be on a scale of one to ten and depending on how badly I had scored – ten being bad – would determine what came next.’
Kathryn’s tears snaked their way into the waiting square of kitchen roll. Her breath stuttered in her throat, her distress as much for the shame in telling as for the memory of the events.
‘Points?’
Roland shook his head. Kathryn couldn’t gauge whether this was in pity or disbelief.
‘Yes. And then he would hurt me.’
This she whispered. Roland strained to hear.
‘How long had he been doing this to you, Kathryn?’
She coughed, collected herself and continued quite brightly, as if she could fool herself that all was well.
‘Well, looking back, I can see that I was bullied from the moment we met. It was little things at first: criticising the clothes I wore, the way I styled my hair, and disliking all of my friends. He put a halt to my career as an English teacher, which was a shame. He broke or threw away anything that I had owned prior to meeting him, monitored my calls, that sort of thing. I was slowly alienated from my family. All his actions were designed to destabilise me and make me more dependent on him, cutting off all my allies and destroying my self-esteem so that when he started the real abuse I was already a victim and quite alone. I had become unable to confidently make a decision, such was my confusion. I had no voice. At least that’s how it felt.’
‘And what you term as “real abuse” – how long had that been going on?’
‘Oh, let me see… since I was pregnant with Dominic.’
‘Who is now sixteen?’
‘Yes, that’s right, although it doesn’t seem possible! Sixteen… it goes so quickly, doesn’t it? You must find that with Sophie. Sometimes I feel as if I was chasing a chubby toddler around the house, then turned my back for a second to find he’s suddenly become this invincible life force, “a teenager”. Sorry, Roland, I’m going off-piste a little, aren’t I?’
She watched his expression, understood his predicament. Kathryn knew that it didn’t sound plausible; it sounded completely bonkers that she had been talking about Mark Brooker, the headmaster! She knew that Roland and every other parent would only ever be able to picture Mark offering a firm handshake and a clever quip. They would all agree that the whole affair was most shocking. What would Mark’s PA, Judith, make of it all? Kathryn smiled to herself as she considered the woman’s reaction, she could just imagine her statement: ‘Mark didn’t look like a nasty man, in fact he was quite gorgeous…’
Kathryn hoped that in time and once all the facts had been revealed, people would ask themselves one important question: if her life had been as perfect as Roland and everyone had thought, why would she have done it? Why would she fabricate the whole nightmare and then ask for punishment if it weren’t true? Unless she was crazy, of course. And Kathryn was determin
ed to prove that she was anything but.
Roland took a deep breath and prepared to repeat his questions.
Seven years ago
Marlham prison was never, ever silent. If it wasn’t the droning TV with its endless cycle of mind-numbing soap operas, then it was the screams of derangement, shrieks of laughter and shouted expletives which apparently could not be delivered without the volume turned right up. Kate, as she was now known, knew from experience that the vilest prose was far more menacing when spoken quietly, slowly and in close proximity, forcing you to really listen and absorb the meaning. Shouting was for amateurs.
There was no peace even at night, when the cells were haunted by the inescapably noisy sobbing of the young and uninitiated. Kate found it heartbreaking. She could not stop herself superimposing the image of her daughter, Lydia, onto their weeping faces and she longed to make them feel better with a hug and a kind word. Their howls were punctuated by the bangs of desperate, angry hands as shoes and hairbrushes hit metal bars and bed frames, tapping out a rhythm that was Morse code for ‘Get me out of here, I want to go home. Please let me go home.’
In the wee hours, unsympathetic warders and tired inmates barked instructions to ‘Quieten down, shut up and turn out the bloody light!’ When the inmates finally fell silent and the warders had taken refuge in their office, the building itself came alive. The Victorian plumbing creaked and groaned, radiators cracked and popped, light bulbs fizzed in their sockets and wind whistled through the gaps between pane and frame.
For Kate, the relentless noise was one of the biggest challenges of prison life, something she had not anticipated. She had steeled herself for the loss of freedom and the tedium, but it was the small things that had the biggest, most unexpected impact. Kate’s yearnings and frustrations grew from the tiniest of privations. Having to squeeze her toes into over-dried, stiffened socks was a daily sufferance. But not being able to make herself a cup of tea dampened her spirits to the point of depression. The cool, milky brew that she was served three times a day was the exact opposite of how she liked it and even after three years she still hadn’t got used to it. Not that she ever longed to be back in the head’s kitchen at Mountbriers – not once, never.
When she first arrived, it was quite exhausting learning the timetable, rules and lingo of the strange environment. Most of her education came from watching the other inmates and imitating their responses to bell rings and indecipherable shouts.
She noticed that new residents fell into two categories: those who raged against the system that had unjustly removed them from a life they loved, taking any opportunity to holler, protest or lash out; and those, like herself, who conducted themselves with a level of serenity that suggested prison might in fact be a refuge from whatever had harmed them on the outside.
In the early weeks of her incarceration, Kate had to remind herself of where she was and why she was there. It was just as someone had once suggested to her: a kind of madness, temporary or otherwise. She had become single, widow and killer in a matter of hours. She was separated from her children and Mark was dead.
The kids were with her sister in Hallton, North Yorkshire. At various times of the day and night, Kate would have sudden panics about their welfare. Had she ever told Francesca that Dominic was allergic to cashew nuts? Supposing she inadvertently fed him some, did he have his EpiPen? Fear of the potentially fatal consequences pawed at her for days; she could think of nothing else. A logical mind would have reassured Kate that her son was a teenager and perfectly able to remind his aunt about his allergy, but this was not a logical mind; this was the mind of someone trying to cope with the enormity of being separated from her children.
When sleep was slow to arrive, Kate would ask herself some pertinent questions. Do you regret it? Do you ever think that maybe it would have been better to have kept quiet, to have kept your hand out of the apron, left the knife in your pocket? Wouldn’t it have been better for everybody, Kate, to have continued living your life the way you always had? At least you got to see the kids every day. At these times she would open one of her sister’s letters and devour her words.
Francesca always started with ‘Hey, Katie’, which turned back the clock to a time when they were young and close, a time before Mark Brooker had left his bruise on the sweet young girl who had very little to worry her. It was, however, more than a time-travelling term of endearment; it was also an acknowledgement that that was the last time the girl who married Mark Brooker had acted of her own free will and not as a frightened puppet. ‘Hey, Katie’ was for Francesca a term of forgiveness now that she was finally able to understand what had lain behind her sister’s cold and stilted behaviour over the years. It was a way of saying, ‘all is forgiven, slate cleaned, onwards and upwards’.
Kate read and reread the snippets of information about her children, thankful beyond expression that her sister had, at Kate’s time of direst need, simply scooped them up and taken them to safety, just as she had known she would. Equally gripping were the dropped hints of ordinary life carrying on regardless – ‘Must dash, shepherd’s pie in the oven!’ – enabling Kate to picture the family around the table, chatting and eating her sister’s signature dish. And then there were the bigger details: Lydia having ‘been accepted at art college to take her foundation course’ and Dominic ‘helping Luke and his dad design the interior of a new business venture he is working on, a boutique hotel, no less! He’s coming up with some great ideas and slowly, slowly the business is finding its feet again, thank goodness.’
Having reread Francesca’s latest news, Kate could answer her own questions without hesitation. No, it would not have been better to have kept quiet, to have left the knife in her pocket. Mark would have killed her eventually, of that she was certain.
It had taken almost three years inside before Kate realised that her confidence and self-esteem were slowly returning. During her marriage she had barely registered their absence, but now she was beginning to feel that she was actually worth something, that she had something valuable to say. She could at last say ‘no’ without feeling guilty – could say no to anything, in fact, be it an invitation to tea, or an aggressive sexual demand. She finally understood that to say no was her right.
Kate knew, however, that she would always carry her experiences in every fibre of her body; she would drag the person she used to be inside her like a waterlogged sponge. Given the choice, she would have preferred a spike of emotion, an obvious grief that after a brief and explosive hysteria would have left her cleansed. But that was not how she operated. Instead, she hauled along a low-level misery that, while suppressed, would shape the rest of her life. This she accepted with a certain resignation. The fear of Mark had gone. In its place lurked a ghost that might appear over her shoulder in the bathroom mirror or creep under the duvet to spoon against her in the dark of night. These momentary jolts, these shiver-inducing memories were entirely preferable to the abject terror in which she used to live.
The loss of contact with her children sat on Kate’s chest like a dead weight. The pain of their absence was instant and sharp; it made breathing difficult and eating nearly impossible. Memories stalked her dreams and she regularly woke in tears, bereft at the recollection of the dimple in Lydia’s toddler finger, Dom’s blue woollen mitten discarded on the icy garden path. The deep, gnawing hunger she felt for them distracted her from everything she tried to do. It was debilitating and ever present, insistently there during every chore at every second of every day. Yet, like someone thirsting for water in the desert, she wasn’t able to fix the problem. Words of apology and explanation hovered on her tongue, but with neither child listening, it felt hopeless, and the frustration drove her frequently to tears. Hard as she tried, her jailers couldn’t or wouldn’t understand that it wasn’t prison per se that bothered her, it was that she needed time alone with her children, just an hour or two in which she could explain to them, comfort them. Could someone not force them to visit her? Please…
The steady slap of flip-flops on the linoleum floor told Kate it was time for the post. The slovenly girl whose job it was to deliver the mail slowed her cart as she approached and flicked through a stack of manila envelopes. Kate could always sense when a letter was heading her way. She smiled as she pictured her sister scribbling at her little desk in between mouthfuls of coffee and the wiping down of counter tops. Lovely Francesca.
The post-girl flung an envelope through the open door and onto Kate’s bed. Having never received one herself, the girl had little idea of how much joy and distraction a letter could bring.
‘Thank you.’ Kate was sincere.
The girl gave the briefest of nods. She wasn’t in it for the thanks; it was all about the few pence she received for her troubles.
Like a connoisseur savouring a fine wine or a good cheese, Kate had learned not to rush the process. She always delayed the opening, holding the envelope, scrutinising the seal and feeling the weight before examining the spidery script of the address. She discreetly put her thumb over her prison number written in black ink in the top left-hand corner; she ignored the thin strip of glue that had already been lifted so that the contents could be scanned and the word ‘AUTHORISED’ stamped in red ink across the flap. For a second or two, she could dismiss the thought that a prison official had already devoured gossip intended only for her and pretend she was somewhere else, receiving news and enjoying the connection with the rest of the world.
What Have I Done? Page 2