Guilt

by Amanda Robson

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ I said. ‘Hi.’

  He laughed. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you, just thought I ought to make contact.’

  He smelt of sandalwood and cigarettes.

  ‘Welcome to Harrison Goddard,’ I said, trying to sound as if I meant it.

  ‘Thank you,’ he replied, pushing his eyes into mine. ‘Do you have time for a coffee?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m trying to get on.’

  ‘Please, Miranda. It’s important we get on – for Zara’s sake.’

  I soften. ‘OK, OK, I’ll make time then.’

  I get up from my desk and we walk together to the coffee machine area.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I ask.

  ‘Never better.’

  His voice seems artificially loud. Bombastic. I know that even if he was finding settling in difficult he wouldn’t admit it. I smile a saccharine smile.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I glanced across the office; I saw you sitting there, looking bored. So I thought you needed a breather. A chance to cheer up.’

  ‘Coffee with you, the perfect mood enhancer?’

  His grin widens. ‘Yep,’ he replies.

  ‘Thanks.’ I pause. ‘Still not missing London?’ I ask, fumbling for something to say.

  ‘Not at all. Why would I? Bristol is the perfect city.’

  Not the sort of person to concede that there are many different ways to live your life.

  ‘What can I get you?’ he asks.

  ‘Espresso please.’

  He starts to press buttons on the coffee machine. I sit down. The Harrison Goddard relaxation area. A cross between Costa Coffee and John Lewis. Comfortable but sterile. Too much green. He joins me with our coffee fix in two oversized white porcelain cups. Odd-shaped saucers, a little biscuit to the side. They are overfilled and as he places them down the coffee slops.

  I take a sip. The coffee is strong, biting my tongue. It leaves an edge on my teeth.

  ‘What is it with you, Miranda?’ He pauses. ‘Even though you’ve welcomed me into your flat, I can’t help feel that your attitude to me is a little … abrasive.’

  I put my coffee cup on the table. I take a deep breath. He has asked so I will tell him the truth.

  ‘I’m worried about my sister. She’s vulnerable.’

  ‘Vulnerable? Why?’

  ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

  He raises his eyebrows a little and shakes his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Well ask her.’ I pause. ‘But please don’t hurt her. She wouldn’t cope with it.’

  He sips his coffee, dark eyes watching me, considering. ‘What makes you think I’d do anything to hurt her?’

  Silence. Eye contact held too long.

  ‘The way you behaved when I came to your house.’

  He shrugs. ‘You didn’t really think I was flirting with you, did you?’

  I flush with embarrassment. ‘I did wonder. Yes.’

  He puts his head back and laughs. A resonant braying laugh. ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Miranda, I was only playing. Surely you realised that? I was just sounding you out.’

  ‘Sounding me out? What am I? A pitchfork?’

  Another laugh that eventually morphs into a grin. ‘Sounding you out to see whether Zara could trust you.’

  ‘But,’ I spluttered, ‘she’s been able to trust me all her life.’

  His eyes slither into mine, making me feel uncomfortable.

  ‘You can trust someone all your life and they can still let you down. I needed to push you outside your comfort zone.’

  I pull my eyes away from his and deliberately focus on the wall behind. ‘You flatter yourself to think that someone I don’t even find attractive trying to flirt with me will push me outside my comfort zone.’

  ‘You’re oversensitive. You flatter yourself to think I was flirting with you. Maybe you’re one of those women who imagine all men are flirts. Anyway, is telling each other how much we don’t fancy each other the best way to make friends?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, it is. We’re laying down boundaries. Important in any meaningful friendship. Our boundary is platonic.’ I pause. ‘Platonic. Platonic. Platonic.’

  ‘OK,’ he says now using a contrived but searing smile. ‘Platonic it is. You win.’ He pauses. ‘But for the record, platonic was all I ever meant.’

  His eyes coagulate into mine again.

  9

  Zara

  Bristol is a cool city. The perfect city. The smell of salt on the breeze. The craggy squawk of seagulls. The Georgian architecture. Banksy. Quirky bands. Quirky bars. Individual shops that no one outside Bristol has heard of. The soft rolling Bristolian accent that sounds as if people are hiding fudge beneath their tongues.

  My photography course is fantastic. What a versatile, intellectual art form photography is. Although I always liked taking photographs, I never realised what an artist I was until I began this course. I have taken four hundred photographs for my extended project, although I haven’t told anyone what it is about yet. It is a special secret that I am looking forward to unleashing.

  Miranda, you are fantastic too, with your glamorous shiny flat. My sensible, caring sister, a sister like a second mother. But then you have always been there for me.

  Most of all, and I want to shout this from every balcony in Bristol, I am on a high because I’m infatuated with my lover Sebastian. His craggy face. His swarthy complexion. The darkness of his stubble that radiates testosterone. It’s the first time I’ve ever been infatuated with anyone, isn’t it, Miranda? You have always teased me about how I suck men in and spit them out.

  And I haven’t had a panic attack since I arrived.

  I will never forget my first one. At school. At the start of my first mock A level. Chemistry. I could hardly breathe. The more I looked at the words on the exam paper in front of me, the less I could read them. They became black wavy lines swimming in front of me. When the result came out I had an E. Not a result to shout about. Not like yours always were, Miranda.

  This bad experience made future exams even more nerve-racking. Looking back, for me, moving towards exams was like moving towards the guillotine. It was simple. My life was about to end. No life beyond them. This is not how I feel now on my photography course. My photography course at the University of the West of England is so natural, it feels like an extension of me.

  After my first panic attack, a barrage of further attacks hit me regularly, assuaged only by cutting. The panic attacks pulled me down. Cutting lifted me up. So many panic attacks. So much cutting.

  The last one was the night before I came to Bristol. Since I came to Bristol, the panic attacks have gone. What has stopped them? The smell of salt on the breeze? The way Sebastian melts into my soul? What will it take to make me throw away my blade? Or will throwing away my blade always be one step too far?

  10

  Miranda

  I watch delicate fingers making the spliff, sprinkling the tobacco, spreading the shaken bud on top of it. Rolling tightly. Licking the edge of the Rizla paper, pressing the paper together with casual but practised insistence. You always roll the perfect spliff, don’t you, Zara? I have never been an expert. I don’t even know where to buy the stuff. But neither of us smoke much. An evening of you to myself. An evening of best Colombian Gold.

  We lie on the rug in front of the TV – on our stomachs, facing each other. Your golden eyes sharpen beneath the electric light of the wintry evening as you light the spliff and take the first drag. You inhale deeply, as if you are sucking the elixir of life into your very being. A passing frown as you concentrate. Holding in. Holding in. Holding in. Release. The musky aroma of cannabis spreads thickly around us. Clinging. Sickly. Sweet. You pass the spliff to me. The same routine: holding, holding, release. The cannabis is making me feel floaty.

  ‘You and Sebastian. Don’t you think it’s too quick?’ I pause. ‘Is it lust, or love at first sight? Don’t you think it might just be lust?’ I ask.

  �
�I thought you’d ask that,’ you sigh, looking into the distance beyond me. ‘But it isn’t lust, it’s definitely love,’ you continue. ‘And when you really love someone you want them to love you back. You want to possess them.’ There is a pause. ‘I do worry that I love Sebastian too much.’

  ‘What’s different about Sebastian?’ I ask, handing the spliff back.

  ‘You sound disapproving.’

  ‘No. I’m curious. Just interested. I want to know.’

  The spliff is burning down in your hand. Slowly, slowly, you take a drag. Then you say, ‘He’s volatile. Dark. There’s nothing bland about him.’

  ‘Don’t you think a bit of bland might be more relaxing?’

  ‘No. Bland is boring.’

  ‘So for you dark and volatile means love?’

  ‘You’re twisting my words. I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Come on, tell me, really tell me about love.’

  ‘Should I quote the Bible or Shakespeare?’

  ‘No. Tell it for yourself.’

  ‘When I touch him, something jumps inside me.’

  ‘That’s sexual.’

  ‘When I’m in a crowded room with him I don’t see anyone else.’

  ‘That’s antisocial.’

  ‘I think about him all the time when I’m not with him.’

  ‘Try being an accountant, not a photography student.’

  ‘That’s condescending.’

  You laugh your heady laugh. You raise the spliff in the air, in sudden proclamation.

  ‘Listen Miranda, when you love someone you just know. It’s a physical actuality, a certainty that settles in your mind. And from that moment on, the rest of your life swings around it. The love, the certainty, is the pivot from which everything else flows.’

  THE PRESENT

  11

  Bail denied. Back inside the cattle truck. First it rattles along a straight road, presumably the motorway. Now it twists and turns down country lanes. Never-ending sickness. Never-ending discomfort. Even when the truck stops still the ground moves beneath her feet. Still she feels sick as she is escorted from the truck into the prison yard.

  The prison building unfolds before her. It looks like a 1960s secondary modern school. Dusty, boxy, low-rise architecture. Surrounded by open countryside. Green upon green. Tree upon tree. Beech and oak, ash and sycamore. Air that tastes fresh. Air that tastes clean. But she will not breathe it for long. Soon she will be incarcerated.

  She is the only prisoner to arrive today. No one else to watch. No one else to empathise with as the guard takes her through the yard.

  Inside, the registration area looks like a hotel reception. Premier Inn? Travelodge? Almost, but not quite. The receptionist is a prison officer. A prison officer with shiny blonde hair, scraped up in a bun. Looking more like a ballet teacher than a prison officer. The ballet teacher hands her paperwork. So much paperwork. Piles of instructions. About the prison routine. About what will happen to her.

  The ballet teacher hands her the suitcase her mother has brought in for her with a label on it announcing it has been checked. The ballet teacher, who is also Little Miss Admin Efficiency, with soft-pink painted fingernails and carefully dyed eyelashes, asks her for details, primly and crisply. Then when she has finished interviewing her, she telephones to request another officer to take her inside. Deepening her voice on the word inside, making it sound as sinister as possible.

  ‘Before you go inside you will be searched,’ Miss Ballet Admin Efficiency warns.

  Her stomach tightens. Her chest burns. She thinks she’s about to have a panic attack. She’s seen too many films where women are strip-searched. Miss Ballet Admin Efficiency sends her across the vestibule to a doorway on the opposite wall. She knocks on it.

  ‘Come in,’ says an elderly voice.

  She breathes deeply to prepare herself. But as soon as she steps inside the small, sterile room she sees a female officer of about sixty, smiling at her. She is gently patted down. So gently she’s not sure how they ever find anything. How easy it must be to smuggle things in. That worries her too. Her insides tighten again.

  ‘That’s fine,’ the elderly officer says. ‘Is it your first time in prison?’

  ‘First and last.’

  A bell-like laugh. ‘Good for you. Good luck.’

  Back into the vestibule. The next officer is waiting for her. The officer to take her ‘inside’. He is a big muscly man with bulging eyes and a bald head. Dragging her large red suitcase, she follows him into the holding room.

  ‘You’re the only one coming in this evening,’ he says conversationally.

  She doesn’t reply.

  The holding room is long and rectangular. It doesn’t have any windows, just doors coming off it. It has scratchy grey woollen sofas set in rows along its middle.

  ‘This is where you wait to go to your cell. Where you are processed.’

  The bulgy-eyed man disappears. She sits on one of the scratchy sofas and waits. She tries to read some of the bumf she’s been given, but there is a mountain of it. Not a word goes in.

  Next stage seems like an attack. More prison officers coming to see her. Handing her more paperwork she can’t read. Prison officers approaching her, asking questions, ticking her answers off on tick-box sheets. Questions. So many questions. What are all these questions about? Has she ever been depressed? Does she have any allergies? Has she ever taken drugs? Does she smoke? Is there any possibility she’s pregnant?

  Somewhere in the middle of all this, a prisoner arrives to see her and asks her if she would like a cup of tea. A cup of tea? How is that going to help? Somewhere in the middle of it all she sees a nurse, who checks her blood pressure and asks her more tick-box questions. Some time after that she sees a doctor. Somewhere in between form filling and medical check-ups she collects a variety of plastic bags. Perforated of course. A plastic bag for the contents of her suitcase. A plastic bag with her bedding: pillows, sheets, duvet. A plastic bag with her allocation of plastic crockery and cutlery. A plastic bag with what are laughingly called luxuries: paper, pen and pre-paid envelope to write a letter home, tea bags and biscuits – rich tea and digestives. Eons of plastic bags.

  She is taken to a cubicle where she is allowed to make a phone call. Her heart beats like the wings of a trapped bird as she tries to call her mother. Ten rings and her mother’s voice speaks to her from voicemail. She sighs inside. Where is she? This time, why isn’t her mother there when she needs her? She has always been there for her before.

  Suffocating in paperwork and plastic bags, she waits to be taken to her cell.

  A scary-looking prison officer with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail finally arrives and walks towards her.

  ‘Hi, I’m Vanessa. I’m taking you to your room on the induction wing.’

  Her voice is very manly. They walk along an empty corridor together. The longest walk of her life, along a corridor crawling with pipes and tubes. The prison officer has a set of keys jangling menacingly on her belt. They move through iron gates. Through another contorted corridor. Another gate. Gates and locks and corridors. Up metal stairs. She struggles with the weight of her four plastic bags. The prison officer doesn’t offer to help. It’s not her place.

  They reach the induction wing.

  ‘It’s late. Everyone’s already locked up for the night – that’s why it’s so quiet,’ the prison officer explains in her throaty voice.

  She looks at her watch: 6:45. So early. She shudders inside. The prison officer is unlocking the door to her cell. They both step inside. She drops her plastic bags to the floor. The cell is small and cramped, not much in it. Just as she imagined. Just as she has seen in so many TV crime dramas.

  ‘You’ll have it to yourself for a few days while you settle in because you’re a newbie,’ the prison officer explains.

  She looks around more closely. Bunk beds with flat blue plastic mattresses. Concrete flooring. A hard, spiky chair with wooden arms. A small desk. A sink. A s
hower. And a toilet with only a shower curtain hanging half-heartedly from the ceiling for privacy. She prays a silent prayer that she never has to share the room. The more she looks, the more she sees that the room is filthy.

  Then it dawns on her. They don’t have cleaners in prison. The prisoners do the work. The person who had this cell before has left it filthy. Brown marks all around the toilet and some on the walls. Dried bloodstains on the bottom bunk mattress. She looks at the mess and feels sick. The prison officer is watching her.

  ‘I can get you some cleaning materials tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Tears are welling in her eyes. She wants to cry. She wants the release.

  The prison officer puts her hand on her arm. ‘Take it easy. It’s always tough on your first night.’

  The prison officer looks at her, kindness burning in her eyes, and then leaves, locking the door behind her.

  She pushes the sound of the locking door to the corner of her mind. With a trembling hand she opens the plastic bag with the writing paper and envelope in. She sits at the desk and writes to Sebastian – begging him to come and visit her. She wants to explain.

  THE PAST

  12

  Zara

  Early morning, Miranda already clattering about in the kitchen, doubtless making her porridge. Sebastian and I are clamped together, naked, in bed. He knows about my cutting now, so I don’t need to hide my scars. He says the thought of me doing it turns him on. I haven’t done it in front of him yet, although he keeps asking me to. He says the ultimate experience would be for us to do it together one day. One day. Not yet. I love lying next to him naked. Skin on skin.

  ‘My mother’s coming to stay next weekend,’ I tell him.

  He doesn’t reply. His body stiffens a little. I lie, head on his chest, tasting the exhalation of his breath.