Kelly is heading for the door. ‘I really think you ought to tell someone, Kel.’
But she doesn’t stop.
I follow her out, my heart leaping into my throat the moment I cross the threshold onto the landing. A scratching sensation inside.
‘Kelly, please?’
But she doesn’t turn around. I see her wince on the stairs.
Below, several women are dancing in a conga line, singing to the tune of Tequila:
‘Tobacco! It makes me happy!
Tobacco it feels fine!
Tobacco when the doors are open!’
The smoking ban has started. As Kelly disappears through the gate I go back into the cell.
She doesn’t come back at lunchtime.
I have eaten all the snacks we have. Tried to focus on our library books, but the words blur on the page. I need to find out what’s happening. I haven’t spoken to Ness yet about Erica. I didn’t even tell Kelly. With everything that happened last night it didn’t seem like the right time. Oh yeah, Kelly, funny story: I just met my fiancé’s dead wife. I can already imagine what Ness would say, and it would include the words lying and bastard. And I’m not sure I’m ready to face that. I still love Robert. I just don’t know if I trust him. I have to be strong. To stay focused. To get me and my baby out of here. Because I know now: if they aren’t letting Kelly keep her child, they sure as hell ain’t going to let the Blonde Slayer keep hers. And I would rather die than let David get my daughter. I need comfort. I need kind words. I want my mum.
I look at my watch again. Surely someone will tell me about Kelly? But of course they won’t. The staff owe us nothing in here. Ryan sees you as either someone to shag or someone to screw over. I don’t think Kev sees us at all. Definitely not as human. But Sara, I thought she was different. If she was here, if she knew what was happening with Kelly, she would tell me.
I stand up. I can’t cope with this any more.
I pull on my big hoodie, pull the hood up, and wait for Association. Kev unlocks my door without a word. I slouch my shoulders forward to try to lose my bump in the folds of the jumper and leave the cell.
And finally I get a break. Because there’s Abi, at the other end of the landing, chatting to a woman in a vest top and baggies.
I walk quickly toward them, making sure my face is hidden within the jumper. Abi will know what’s happened to Kelly. Abi has her finger on the pulse of the prison.
‘Yeah, it might be your hip flexors,’ Abi is saying to the other girl. ‘Like, pulling on your knee. Do they feel tight? Try this.’ She folds her leg back, and pulls her foot against her bum into the stretch.
The other woman copies, her foot getting nowhere near her bum.
‘Tuck your pelvis under, you wanna feel it pull here,’ she says.
I’m almost upon them before they see me.
I grin. But it falters as Abi’s features drop into a scowl.
‘Err . . . I wondered if you’d seen Kelly, or heard about where she is – she hasn’t come back,’ I say.
Abi turns to face me and my heart stops. The left sleeve of her T-shirt is rolled. ‘Abi – not you too?’ I stare at her, dumbfounded. Abi is clean. She’s one of the good guys. She knows me. She knows Kelly. The other woman releases her foot, looks nervously between us, unsure what the hell is going on. ‘You saw what they did to our cell?’
‘Your cell.’ Abi’s jaw is set. Defiant. ‘I’ve told Kelly she should have nothing to do with scum like you.’
She has? For a second I think that’s what’s happened – Kelly has transferred to a different cell. But her stuff, her magazines, her photos, she would never leave them. ‘I just want to know if she’s all right.’ I think of the colourful decorated pages of Abi’s book, and how they seem so alien to this granite-faced girl.
Abi’s head is tilted back, so she’s peering through slatted eyes at me. Divide and conquer, that’s what Gould is doing. Except soon there won’t be anyone left on my side.
‘Fine. Forget it.’ I turn to walk back.
‘She’s at the hospital,’ Abi says. I pause. ‘They took her in this morning.’
‘Thanks,’ I say.
But Abi has already turned around, and I get the feeling that was it. One final moment for old times’ sake. But now I’m on my own.
Now
It’s three days till Kelly returns. Sara, helping her, one arm round her, easing her into our cell. Her hair is lank against her face, and she looks pale, hollowed out, older. Her eyes ringed in shadow so they look like sockets. As if the life has been sucked from her.
I jump up from the bed as quickly as my bump allows. See Kelly’s eyes rest on it sickeningly. Oh god. I don’t know what to say. What to do. ‘Should she . . .? Is there nowhere else – a hospital wing?’ I look at Sara imploringly.
‘This ain’t Harry Potter,’ she says, kindly. I know that. I know there’s no hospital wing. I know that if you have a mental health issue, if you have a breakdown, they take you to seg. And that’s no place for Kelly in this state.
Sara puts down the plastic bag she’s been carrying. ‘Here you go, love,’ she says, patting Kelly. ‘Jenna here will look after you.’
Kelly shuffles but doesn’t sit. I wonder if she’s had stitches. How we’re supposed to keep her clean. Sterile. Someone must be coming. Someone professional must be being sent to help.
Another rendition of the Tobacco song starts up outside.
‘Drat,’ says Sara, looking over her shoulder. They’re stamping them out as fast as they can. She looks at me. ‘Put the kettle on – stay with her, yeah?’
And she’s gone.
Silence fills the room. Kelly stares ahead at a spot on the floor, as if it hurts for her to look at me. Which it probably does. They’ve taken her baby. They’ve actually done it. This is actually real. They take babies away from mothers.
‘He had hair,’ she says, without looking up.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I don’t know what to say. How to help. She should be talking to a professional. I move across the room and switch on the kettle like Sara said. Has she done this before? Seen women separated from their newborns?
‘Black,’ Kelly says. ‘Like one big curl.’
My heart breaks.
The kettle noisily shakes itself on its cradle.
Kelly hasn’t moved. Her voice even quieter. I struggle to hear it over the jiggling kettle. ‘They only let me keep him for four hours. I didn’t have anything to give him. Nothing for him to remember me by.’
The kettle clicks.
Her voice is barely a whisper. ‘Not even a nappy. I had to borrow money off the screw to buy some in the shop.’
I put my arm around her. Her shoulders are slumped.
‘They handcuffed me in the ambulance.’ She closes her eyes as if she can squeeze the memory out.
‘I’m so sorry, Kelly. I’m so very very sorry.’ But the words do no more than the steam that’s rising from the kettle. They’re nothing but vapour. Gone like her son.
Kelly shudders under my arm. Did she get to hold him? To tell him she loved him? To give him a name?
After a long time in silence Kelly shifts. And I help her shuffle backwards till she’s perched on the edge of the bed.
I re-boil the kettle for something to do. Pick up the plastic bag Sara left behind.
‘What is this?’ I say, pulling out some bottles, the bag still weighty. I thought it was her overnight bag, but I realise Kelly is still in the same clothes she left for work in. She’s had no fresh set, no pyjamas, no clean underwear. She had nothing with her.
A tiny flicker of something, the girl I used to know, the woman Kelly was before, flits over her face. ‘Breast pump.’
‘Breast pump?’ The words are cold stones in my mouth.
‘It’s the only thing I can do for him now.’
She’s going to express. That’s what the bottles are for. And someone is going to take the milk to him. To her baby.
I
put the bottle top we use as a plug in the sink and fill it with boiling water. Tears course silently down my face and I try not to let my shoulders shake as I wash the bottles for her.
Behind me Kelly stares at the floor.
Now
For three weeks Kelly only gets out of bed to express and use the toilet. She stops eating, until I tell her her milk will stop if she doesn’t keep her calorie count up. The idea that she is helping her son is the rope that is leading her through the darkness. And no one comes. On the first day I went to see the doctor, said she needed psychological help, comfort, something. He said if she had a problem she could come see him herself. I get her meals as best I can, checking both our trays carefully before eating. After I found dead cockroaches in both our dishes word obviously got out. Abi brings up at least one tray a day for Kelly. She won’t come in the cell while I am inside though. And I’m not about to loiter on the landing when I don’t need to.
The screws, in a rare moment of empathy, have taken to sticking their head in to count Kelly as she stares up at the ceiling during roll-call. Though it is apparent she isn’t about to run off. And Sara comes most days to collect the bottles of milk.
‘She needs help,’ I say quietly, as she collects the bottles from the sink, where I store them in cold water to try and fight the sweltering July heat. I’ve been in this cell for one hundred and thirty-three days and I think it’s just getting hotter. The length of time weighs on me along with the sweat. There are only two bottles today, down from three, and I’m already beginning to worry what will happen when it drops to one. And then below that.
Sara glances at Kelly, whose unwashed hair is beyond the greasy stage, and, I’ve noticed, starting to come away in wisps on the pillow. ‘It’s a tragic thing – it’s going to take her time,’ she says, quietly.
A tragic thing the prison had full control over. Kelly’s baby hasn’t died. This is not some awful accident of fate. She is in limbo, a malformed grief for a child she’s been denied. A child who is out there, drinking its mother’s milk, living, breathing, growing. And it feels so frustratingly simple to fix. They could make all this stop. They could give Kelly her baby back. But they aren’t going to.
‘And how are you?’ Sara says.
I realise I’ve been rubbing my lower back.
I’m thirty-two weeks pregnant. Screaming inside. Terrified about what will happen to my child. Devastated that Emily’s dead. Reeling that her mother is not. Fearful of David. Scared my fiancé is still missing. Scared that he had something to do with this. And unable to talk to my lawyer because he’s with his family at Center Parcs for the summer holidays. ‘I’m fine.’
I don’t know if she believes me. Anything we might have had at the beginning when I arrived – those small crumbs of kindness – had been just that. Scraps. Sara isn’t bad, but she is one of them. Because you couldn’t be one of us and just act as if what is happening to Kelly is okay.
‘Ryan’s going to pick the milk up tomorrow,’ Sara says.
I nod.
‘The weekend,’ she says, by means of explanation.
I presume it is a big deal to get both a Saturday and Sunday off when you do shift work, but I can’t bring myself to be happy for her. Ness, realising that phone calls had dried up, has sent a letter saying she and Mum are going to come up next Thursday. Mum has apparently been incapacitated with bad asthma. I push away the idea that this might be a euphemism. That the pressure of this situation has tipped her back over the edge. I named Ness as my guardian of choice, and the social has been to see them both. It is a preliminary for the Admissions Board hearing. Presumably they’ve been to see David and Judith and their spacious and luxurious home as well. Please don’t have failed me, Mum. I hate myself for the thought.
‘All right, so I’ll see you next week,’ Sara says.
I nod.
It is only after she’s gone that I see she’s left several packets of noodles, and some bananas.
‘Roll-call!’ The shout wakes me. Early today. I hope that doesn’t mean they’re going to pull another search. They’ve been picked up since the smoking ban came in, and everyone is fed up about it. It’s stupid really, because the smell of both cigarette and spice smoke wafts freely from the cells on two and three landings. They could round up the smokers straight away. But they are presumably after the supply. Not that that should be too difficult to track down. But wherever Gould has stashed her stockpile, they are yet to find it.
‘Move it, ladies!’ It’s Ryan’s voice yelling. ‘Roll-call!’
Kelly hasn’t moved above. I don’t know if she is asleep. She has been at times, because that’s when she makes horrible sounds, thrashing about in her nightmares. Thwarted screams emanate from deep down inside her, as if they’ve got lost on the way up. Then she’ll gasp for air. I’ll ask if she’s okay. And she won’t answer. Because she isn’t.
I jump up, pull my joggies and big jumper on, and leave the cell.
Immediately I feel the eyes on me. The air shifts, grows ripe with expectation. Did someone just whisper Blonde Slayer? I can no longer tell what is paranoia and what is real threat. The two women in the cell to the right peer through narrowed eyes. As if they are about to hiss like cats. The pretty freckled girl from the stairs seems to now be in the cell to our left. Why have they moved her? She is one of Gould’s – could she have somehow engineered that? Has she been moved to watch me? That’s daft. It is just as likely her toilet has backed up and this is the only spare cell. Stretching her bare arms up and moulding her bed-head hair into a bun, she catches my eye.
The globule of spit lands a centimetre from my foot. Not just paranoia then.
‘Wakey, wakey!’ Ryan has reached the end of our floor.
I do not need to be blamed for this. I smear the yellow spittle into nothing with my trainer, and keep my eyes down. Twenty-seven hours and thirty-two minutes till I get to see Mum and Ness.
‘It’s against our human rights!’ A voice rises at the other end of the platform. There is a low rumble of agreement.
‘If I’m not allowed a fag, you ain’t,’ Ryan says. I sneak a look to see he has a confiscated packet of tobacco in his hand. The woman who is arguing with him is in her early sixties. Her hair already coiffured into the tight, close curls my Nan used to favour for special occasions. She is wearing black trousers, and a blouse, and looks more like an office manager than a criminal. Though by this point I know any ideas I’d had about what a criminal looks like were nonsense.
The woman looks like she is going to add more, but instead she purses her lips and Ryan continues down the line. It is a punishable offence to be caught with tobacco. She is lucky he hasn’t taken her privileges away. She is lucky she isn’t sent to seg. There are murmurs up and down the landing, but Ryan ignores them. Continues to swagger along. My skin tingles. Something bad is going to happen.
Now
‘Good morning, sunshine.’ Ryan pauses and looks appraisingly at the skimpy vest top of the girl who spat at me. ‘You’re all present and correct,’ he says, in the direction of her breasts.
She giggles. Actually giggles.
Most of the women are staring forward, or at the ground, lost in their own thoughts. Counting down to when they can get back in their cells, on with their days. Below I can hear another officer counting the women down there.
I only look up for a second, but it is enough. Ryan tucks the tobacco into the pretty freckled girl’s pyjama bottoms like it was a twenty into a stripper’s pants. And she flicks it out of sight with her wrist.
I don’t look away quickly enough. Ryan’s eyes catch me. It must show on my face. I look at the ground.
I didn’t see anything. I don’t want any trouble.
He swaggers over, exaggerating the stance his muscles require. The feel of his finger running down my body shudders through me.
‘What’s up, Blondie?’ he says.
I stare at the ground. Wrong choice.
His voice hardens. �
��Where’s the other mother?’ The freckled girl laughs. He’s grinning at his own joke. His teeth-whitening needs topping up.
You know where she is. Where she’s been for the last three weeks, since you lot took her baby away. ‘She’s not well. She’s in bed.’
He steps toward me, and instinctively I bump backwards into the wall. He has to lean over the top of my bump to get his face close to mine. His arm brushing my stomach. My hands feel clammy. ‘Last time I checked you weren’t a doctor, Blondie,’ he says. ‘And,’ he pantomimes looking around, ‘I don’t see your stuck-up friend from the hospital here right now, do you?’
I swallow.
‘So, let’s get the other mother up, shall we?’ He pushes past me and kicks open the cell door. ‘Oh Mummy!’ he calls.
‘Stop!’ Oh my god.
‘Mummy, mummy, mummy,’ Ryan calls. He marches over to the bunk. Kelly a tiny bundle in the covers. His foot catches the breast pump, and a bottle goes skittering across the floor. Revulsion colours his face. ‘Urgh.’ He shakes his foot as if it has been contaminated.
‘Stop it, please.’ I reach toward him, to pull him away from her.
He looks quite comical for a second, balancing on one leg, his face a grimace. I’ve seen him be nice to those with kids in the visitors’ room. He isn’t bad. He’s just out of his depth. He hasn’t had the training. And I can see there is little difference, only the smallest of veils, between those who are on his side and those who are on ours.
‘Please,’ I say quietly. ‘She needs to rest.’
The bottle is still spinning on the floor. Slowing and slowing like a dark version of the teen’s game.
I bend to pick it up. A booted foot comes to rest on top of it before I can get there.
Kelly has still not moved, has not made a noise.
On My Life Page 25