The Sarah?
The Sarah. I suppose I’d half-thought he’d made her up. He rang the bell and a young lass with a baseball bat and Dracula teeth answered.
Telephone Conversation with Mrs Sarah Overgaard, 25th August 201630
30 I resorted to walking around Moorside and knocking on the door of every house with a sundial in the front garden, putting out of my mind the possibility that the detail hadn’t simply been a story-telling flourish on Ian’s part. Surprisingly, however, there were sundials aplenty.
Sarah’s house – old house, I should say – was the sixth I visited. A Mr. Rolfe answered the door. He told me that the Overgaard’s – that being Sarah’s surname – had moved away several years earlier. Improvising (badly), I explained that I was a childhood friend of Sarah’s, who was looking to reconnect in the scant window provided by my hectic business trip to the UK (I was a rare shoe dealer). I fully expected Mr. Rolfe to tell me to sling my proverbial hook, but instead he obligingly provided me with Sarah’s current telephone number, explaining that Sarah gave it to him when he and his wife had moved in, should they have any future questions regarding the idiosyncrasies of the house.
I was grateful to Mr Rolfe for his assistance, but couldn’t help thinking he should be more careful giving out such sensitive information willy-nilly. After all, there are a lot of weirdos out there.
Thank you for talking with me Sarah.
I almost didn’t. This is very strange, you know.
Believe me, I understand. I don’t want to take up much of your time, but as I’ve explained, I’m interested in the New Year’s Eve party you threw in 1993. I’m trying to get an idea of Douglas’ final movements and I realise it’s something of an ask, but anything you can remember would be of enormous help.
Were you two friends?
I only met him once, but perhaps we could have been. How did you first meet?
God, I don’t even remember. He was just around. One of his friends was seeing one of my friends, or something like that. It was all a long, long time ago. When he showed up that night, I hadn’t heard from him in years.
How was it to see him again?
All of a sudden he was just there, in my living room, and at first I thought it was someone dressed up as, well…as a homeless person. He looked terrible and his clothes were filthy. Everybody was looking at him. He was never comfortable with people looking at him.
The first thing he said to me was that his tooth hurt. I was so confused – the whole scene was really confusing – that I ended up grabbing him and locking us both in the bathroom. My husband Toby was like, Who the hell’s that? but I just needed a minute.
Must have been a shock.
That’s an understatement. I got Doug to open his mouth, and it looked like an abscess. Have you ever had one?
No.
It’s agony. I gave him some painkillers. I didn’t know what to say. I went to unlock the door but he stopped me, and that’s when I realised the situation I’d put myself in. See, he’d sent me awful letters from prison. Threats. I’d had to get the police involved.
Do you still have any of these letters?
I threw them away.
What did he say then, in the bathroom?
He just came out with it. He wanted to know if I’d ever really loved him.
And what did you say?
There was nothing to say. It was all such a long time ago. We’d both been so young.
How did he take it?
How did he take it? Well…
Doug. Cont.
8/6/1986
I’ve been going to the poetry class on Thursdays. Hardly anybody goes coz they all reckon it’s for fannies, but it gets me out of association & helps me build confidence in my words. Coz I need words in here. Sarah’s got to know how I feel.
I swore I’d write her every day & I won’t break that promise (37 letters down, max 1,058 to go). Have just finished tonight’s in fact. In it I describe the house we’ll get when I get out. Somewhere nice, away from the estate, with windows that don’t pool condensation. Proper garden for bairns when we have bairns. A place to put down roots. I wrote 8 pages, both sides, on spiral notepaper from canteen. Blue biro smears across my left-hand words.
I write at night with torch. My pen clicks. Clicking pisses Mellish off, the blancmangey whore. His fat upside-down head lowering from top bunk. He says: You tryna wake the dead or summat?
Waking the dead is the last thing I want.
Waiting for Sarah’s replies does my head in, but it’s a blessing in a way. Every day’s the same in here: same mushy peas on Sundays. Egg & chip Tuesdays. I spend my days bagging nickel hooks & handles for bedroom furniture & at night, after bang-up, Mellish’ll lumber down off his bunk to drop his guts in the pad shit bucket. All that white bread, he says, straining. Here comes the Beegees. I wrap pillow round head to stop his shit particles rotting in my lungs. Then, when he’s snoring, I wank off to favourite memories: the weekend me & Sarah only got out of bed for the pizza man, the time she sucked me off on the back of the 551. I jizz silently in keks. Rank, but I don’t want it on sheets.
I tell Sarah none of this.
But through it all, I think: her letter might come tomorrow…& if it doesn’t, well at least I can look forward to day after. Then there’s the days they do come, man. Just seeing my name in her joined-up writing’s enough to burst me out of all this concrete like a fucking Exocet. Hers is proper grown-up writing. I’s that look like 9s. Zeds that look like 3s. What I do is, I don’t open it straight away but put it under my pillow while I get through the day. Savour it. Let the secret of it drop like a screen between me & the rest of the cunts in here. I wait ’til I can’t take any more & then & only then will I go to it, to her. Careful not to tear envelope, slip out the folded paper. Hold something she’s held. Her letters always so short compared to mine. 2 pages max, where I can write 10 easy without even telling her half the shite going on in here.
Thought: coz her writing’s a lot smaller & better than mine, it’s probably that we write the same amount, it just looks less. Going to count the one I’ve yet to send against the last one of hers’. Result:
Me: 2,252 words.
Her: 500 dead.
So guess not.
19/6/1986
Her letter came today. She’s got new lockers at work. Tall ones, like in American High School films. She’s worried she’s getting a cold-sore. Her auntie Wendy came for the weekend & won a pressure cooker at the bingo.
Ends with this:
Will write soon, Sarah x.
Not love, Sarah x.
Not I love you, Sarah x.
Have just finished writing back. Filled 13 pages with memories of us before all this. Like the day at the river, when I asked her to marry me.
I put:
Know that I love you more than anything on this Earth.
Which might be too much, but it’s near the bottom of the page & I’ve written on both sides. Scribbling it out would be like showing her the scribble of my mind. Scribble of my heart. So I leave it in.
Plus it’s how I really feel. Why shouldn’t a man say those things to the girl who’s already agreed to marry him?
22/6/1986
Maybe she just forgot to write ‘love’? Was in a hurry to catch the postman & just forgot?
23/6/1986
No. Who’s ever been in hurry to catch postman? Only happens in films, that. Plus love is the only word that matters. Swear down, if all she put in her letters was I LOVE YOU DOUG – just that on a blank page & sent it every day, then I could hack this place. This pad. This shite in my head getting worse & worse like telly static being turned up.
So why doesn’t she?
GUILT, that’s why.
Last year this Christian Aid bloke on the high street rattled his bucket at her,
so to get shot of him she said she already donated regularly to charity. Bucket bloke asked who to & she panicked & blurted out donkeys. First thing that popped into her head, she said later. I creased up. Couldn’t breathe. But it was no joke for her. The lie went bad inside her until one day she cracked & started donating for real: a £5 standing order for old seaside mules too knackered to go up & down the beach anymore.
Coz that’s the kind of person she is. Lies twist her guts up. So maybe she can’t write ‘love’ coz she feels no love?
Was thinking about all this on the landing on way to work. Lost in own head & not watching where I was going & smacked right into him. Si Cullen from Hemlington. Said I was sorry, but he didn’t look happy.
Screw your fucking head on Doug.
26/4/1986
Got her letter today. Savoured it. Opened it. Stomach dropped. Suffered through a sleepless night before I could ring her house. Her mam answered, said she was out.
Out where?
Work.
On a Sunday?
It’s them new Continental shift patterns.
Her letter says she can’t visit next week.
Do you have any idea what these Continental shifts are like?
But this is the third one she’s missed. I can’t rearrange – all the slots are full.
Murder, they are.
But–
She said, I read in the paper it costs the taxpayer over a billion a year to keep the likes of you. Then she hung up.
Her mam doesn’t like me. I remember first time Sarah had me back for tea & her mam asked what I did & I said mechanic. She looked down her nose at me & said “I suppose that explains the muck on my settee.”
Thought: try & see not speaking to Sarah as a blessing. Lets me get a grip. Don’t write back straight away either. Play it cool. Show her I’m independent, have a life of my own. Yes, even in prison. Important not to become one of the people I’m in here with. The Obsessives & Fuckups doing 5-year stretches for crawling through women’s bathroom windows at night & that.
29/4/1986
STUPID!! SO FUCKING STUPID!!!! It’s all there in black & white! CLUES!! I missed them first time round coz of length of time between her letters. But read them all in one go & BOOM! Clear as fucking day!
Like this innocent little sentence from February. She writes:
I haven’t been up to much this week.
At first you think, ah well, slow week, fair enough. But THINK about it. What does “not been up to much” MEAN? Even in here, where the tedium can melt your fucking face: wake up, slop out, work, bang-up, repeat – even in here there are experiences & details to be teased out. My head is bursting with thoughts & feelings all the time! I write her 10 fucking pages a day! Does she seriously expect me to believe her life is emptier than mine? No, she’s being hazy on purpose coz she doesn’t WANT to tell what she’s thinking & doing, coz what she’s thinking & doing doesn’t involve me.
Now this one:
Me and Andrea went shopping.
When a lass says “went shopping” it means “went clothes shopping.” But what clothes? Why does she need new clothes? She has plenty of clothes. Did she buy a new dress? New shoes? New knickers & bra? Why does she need new knickers & bra?
Or this:
It was Becky’s birthday on Saturday so we all went out to Dunes.
This one’s the worst. WE all went out. Who’s WE? Who’s she with at nights while I’m lying awake listening to Mellish’s arse? Who’s buying her Tequila Sunrises? Whose hot breath in her ear? Whose arm round her? Whose fat cock pressed against her thigh? But can’t write any of this to her. Would look like I’m being controlling. Paranoid. Possessive. The shite that sends women into the arms of other men, who are also all those things only hide it better.
Next visiting day after this one is 1st August. Factory Fortnight. She’s got no excuse for missing that one.
She’ll be there. I know it. I can talk to her about the secret meanings in her letters. Get some things straight. She’ll come. She will.
2/7/1986
Pad too hot, so braved day room during association. Whenever I’m surrounded by “populous” I feel myself shrinking. The other me takes over, the one who took Vincent’s tyre iron. The one who killed that girl. I want to hate this other me.
Cartoons on telly. Cats & dogs clouting each other with frying pans. Kept eyes glued to screen. Tried to ignore Si Cullen watching me.
Si sat down beside me. He said, Ask me why my nana can’t juggle oranges.
I pretended like I thought he was talking to someone else.
Ask me why my Nana can’t juggle oranges.
Si’s grinning mate hanging off his shoulder. Ask him the fucking question.
So I did. I asked Si why his Nana couldn’t juggle oranges.
His eyes vicious in his caveman skull. Lips peeling back. Rows & rows of fucked teeth.
My Nana’s dead, he said.
You sick bastard, his mate said. That woman raised him like he was her own.
Other me apologising: Sorry, sorry, so so sorry.
Si stood up, blocked out telly. Said, one day soon I’m gonna learn you respect.
Need to get out of here. Need to get out. Need Sarah. Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah Sarah where are you?
6/7/1986
Her letter came today. ¾ page long. She’s been to see something called Fright Night at the Ritzy (didn’t say who she saw it with, but who goes to pictures on their own?). Sign off:
Sarah x
Been lying here for hours trying to write reply but nowt coming out. Nothing but a fizzling in my head like the round black bombs in cartoons. Crackling fuse, inching down…
14/7/1986
Hottest day of the year the papers say. Sweat dripping on notebook, pages curling, turning armpit yellow. Wyndham31 steams & groans. The stink of this place: B.O, arse, spunk, smoke, bleach – almost visible, a brown fog on the landings. Cataracts of shite. Walk into the day room & get slammed by hot farts of men with too many spam fritters in diet. Uniforms made from rayon shite that doesn’t breathe. Sweat rash all over my chest & back, coming together like armies on a map. Angry red cock & balls & itchy pubes. One of the cooks – big lad from Hexham in for counterfeit notes – fainted in the kitchens this morning. Took a whole vat of cauliflower cheese with him.
31 Wyndham Hall. Former Cat. C prison near Masham, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Opened 1882, closed 1997
Still haven’t replied to her last letter. She can make me crawl out of my skin with one casual reference to Fright Night. How the fuck do I combat that? No, Doug, that’s wrong. How do I turn it into love?
Si stared me out the whole time in dining hall today. I kept my face buried in my liver & onions. Panicked when I got up to empty my tray & he followed. Saw screw in hall who I knew loved his football so I talked him up about Middlesbrough’s chances of bankruptcy. Thank fuck I’d read the papers so could fake an interest. Kept conversation going until Si melted away. Not wise to be seen talking to screws, but even less wise to find yourself alone with that fucking loon.
Just have to get to August. Just need to see her face. A fortnight. That’s nowt. People don’t eat for months & not die. People hold their breath underwater for 10 minutes & not die. Human beings can be incredible. Remember that: Human Beings Can Be Incredible.
1/8/1986
Heat unbearable. Weeks of it now. People reaching end of ropes. But today, finally, Sarah is visiting. I shave with blunt razor. Sweat rash wrapped round throat. Had been keeping it at bay with athlete’s foot cream, but ran out. Nowt I can do about it now, though thought of Sarah seeing it makes me ashamed.
Can’t write now. Too wound up. Almost time. Will pick up later.
That didn’t go well.
First thing I noticed was her scarf. A silky thi
ng with Japanese-y fish sewn into it. New? Looked new. Expensive. She sat down across from me at plastic anti-riot table. Hands in lap. She smiled, but could only look at me in short bursts. Me, I just gawped. She was more beautiful than ever & all the things I’d planned to say were annihilated.
How are you getting on? she said.
Oh, you know, I said. When I should’ve been screaming “I’m fucking dying in here without you.”
Then, in a quiet voice I didn’t like, she apologised for not visiting. That her letters were taking longer. There were these crazy new shifts at work &–
Continental, I said. Murder.
Around us, the other tables were getting on like houses on fire. Even Mellish was there with his half-blind wife who’d come over from Manchester on the coach. Room filled with chat & laughter & then there was us, in the corner. An interview where we both knew the job was going to the other bloke.
I told her she’d caught the sun.
You think? I’ve been working on my tan. Sick of being a milk bottle (image of her on Redcar Esplanade in one of the many new bikinis she’s been buying. Shrugging a shoulder strap for some cunt’s oily fingers…).
Sarah fidgeted with her engagement ring. Slipped it up & down her finger.
It’s sweltering in here, I said. Why don’t you take that scarf off?
Summer cold, she said.
A scarf won’t help. You look fine.
Better not. I’m just getting over it.
I tried to sound casual. In control. Like I wasn’t locked in a concrete box. It’s a nice scarf. Where’d you get it?
This? Had it yonks. Andrea gave it to me, I think.
Flat out bald-as-fuck lie. I’m in prison. I know one when I hear it.
The ring went up & down on her brown finger & shouldn’t there be a band of untanned flesh – however faint – where that ring – everlasting symbol of my love – had protected it from the sun? Something inside me cracked.
Screws called time. Visitors stood, hugged, shuffled out dabbing eyes. I told Sarah I loved her. Staring at her as I said it. Not wanting to, but needing to.
I love you too, she said.
& I wanted to throw it all in her face. But didn’t. Not brave enough. Never brave enough.
Ironopolis Page 30