Fry

by Lorna Dounaeva

  I must have raised my voice a bit too much, because the people at the next table turn round to stare.

  “Don’t worry about me, Isabel. I can look after myself.”

  You can’t fool me. I know you’re scared. We both are. Alicia could come back any time.

  I long to reach out and squeeze his hand, but I’m not sure I’m allowed. I’m also not sure how he’d respond. I couldn’t bear it if he rejected me. Not here. Not now. Not when I need every ounce of my strength just to survive.

  After Deacon’s visit, I begin to get a few more. Kate, Rhett and Sonya all visit over the next few months. They barely mention the case at all but I find it hard to relate to their idle gossip. I suppose they are trying to keep my spirits up, but never once do they say: “I know you’re innocent.” Never once do they imply Alicia’s guilt. And if my friends think I’m guilty, how on earth can I expect anyone else to believe me?

  I sink into a deep despair, don’t even care when a nasty prison officer pours gravy in my yoghurt, or when other inmates nick all my chocolate and cigarettes.

  Then, just as I’m beginning to think all hope is lost, I receive a phone call from Brian and finally get the news I’ve been waiting for.

  “Holly’s awake!”

  I nearly drop the phone.

  “Is she going to be OK?”

  “Too soon to tell.”

  *

  As the days pass, news filters through that she’s getting better. Not her memory though, apparently. She still doesn’t remember what happened.

  Or doesn’t want to remember.

  “But her memory could come back at any time, couldn’t it?” I ask Brian, hopefully.

  “It’s possible. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  He sounds just like my Mum did when I wanted something when I was a kid. Never an outright ‘no’, always a vague, indistinct answer – as if she hoped I’d just forget it.

  I’m screwed, aren’t I?

  Even if Holly does remember, that doesn’t mean she’s going to tell. If Alicia and Jody can turn my own brother against me, they can easily turn Holly. She is not going to be my ticket out of here. No one is.

  My cellmate, Rachel, is undergoing a harsh process of detoxification. It’s not fun for anyone. There’s a lot of moaning and vomiting. The smell is enough to make me want to be sick too, so I keep right out of her way. I spend most of my time lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to work out how my life took such a rapid nosedive.

  But it’s not just the other inmates I’m scared of. It’s her…Alicia. I get glimpses of her every now and then – a curly head at the other end of the exercise yard; dark, smouldering eyes in the queue for breakfast. Even the little doe-eyed girl in the visitor room. She is everywhere. I never get a moment’s peace. Not even here.

  And although I sleep more deeply these days, I dream badly. My dreams are littered with cryptic memories:

  I turn around urgently, looking for Wednesday Adams.

  “You were going to tell me something,” I beg her. “Something important.”

  She looks at me, derision in her face. Suddenly, she is not little Wednesday anymore. She is grown-up Alicia. And her eyes blaze with fire.

  “You had your chance and you blew it. Now I’m taking matters into my own hands.”

  “No, don’t! Come back and talk to me. I promise this time I’ll take you seriously. I promise I’ll listen.”

  She fixes me with a terrible scowl. “It’s too late now. The damage is already done.”

  And she spins on her heel and storms off.

  *

  The long months I spend at Gillmore might as well be years, or decades even. I have gone from outright panic to gloomy acceptance of my fate. This is where I belong now. This is my home.

  The night before my trial, Rachel is carted off to the healthcare wing so I have the whole place to myself for once. A little quiet before the storm. Before I climb into bed, I do something I can’t really explain. I get down on my hands and knees and pray to a god I don’t believe in. Pray that I will be spared from this life of misery and torment. Pray for a sign that everything will be all right. My prayers are met with the banging of cell bars and the abrupt descent of darkness - lights out.

  I lie down but I can’t get comfortable. I fumble under my pillow. It feels like there’s a rock under there. My hands close around something cold and hard.

  A mobile phone.

  Mobiles are strictly forbidden in Gillmore. Either someone is trying to get me in trouble or they want to get in touch with me. I stare, stupefied, as the display lights up. It’s ringing.

  “Hello?” I whisper, grateful for the nosy wailings of my neighbours in the next cell. I really can’t get caught doing this. Not on the eve of my trial. And yet something compels me to continue.

  “You really don’t remember, do you?” says the voice in the darkness.

  “No.”

  I hear an elongated sigh.

  “I had hoped you would by now. Lord knows I’ve done my best to jog your memory.”

  “I know you have.”

  “I came to you in confidence and told you my deepest, darkest secret. I risked everything to tell you. I looked up to you. I thought you would help me.”

  “You were ten years old. Just a kid…”

  “Yes, I was just a kid. But you were an adult. You were supposed to do the right thing.”

  “I…”

  “Instead, you laughed in my face. Told me not to be so dramatic. Then you repeated everything to my dad, as an amusing story on Parents’ Day.”

  “That’s all I thought it was.”

  “You could have looked into it. You could have checked the facts. He burned me that night, you know. Branded that word into me as punishment for telling you. Burned it into me.”

  “I… I didn’t know…”

  “You didn’t try. It’s a terrible thing, to not be believed, Isabel.”

  “I know. I know that now.”

  “And I’m never going to let you forget.”

  I flush the phone down the toilet. The hours tick slowly by till morning, a long, arduous journey into my personal day of reckoning. The day I’ve waited for, for so long now. My chance to prove my innocence - to finally get out. But it doesn’t feel as I thought it would. There is no sudden burst of adrenaline. No flicker of hope. Just resignation and reconciliation to my fate.

  *

  “Ah, Isabel. How are you feeling?” asks Brian, at our final meeting before the trial. His breath smells faintly of the espresso he had at breakfast. “I hope you managed to get some sleep? I just wanted to go over a few things before we go in.”

  Without thinking, I put my hand up to stop him.

  “Brian, wait. I’ve changed my mind. I want to plead guilty.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Brian looks absolutely stunned.

  “What are you talking about? You can’t plead guilty. You didn’t do it!”

  I look down at the ground. “I’m just not sure it’s worth the fight.”

  “What?”

  His face turns a peculiar shade of purple.

  It isn’t me he’s concerned about. It’s his track record – his career. Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?

  “I just don’t have the energy. What’s the point when I’m going to be found guilty anyway? Because I will. She’ll see to that.”

  Brian grits his teeth. “I don’t take cases I can’t win,” he says vehemently. “I told you that at the start.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think you fully appreciate what you’re up against.”

  “We’ve been over and over this. I get the picture.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not sure you do. Don’t you understand? Alicia can get to anyone. If my own brother won’t even back me up then what hope have I got? I might as well admit defeat. Get a lighter sentence.”

  Brian looks like he’s about to explode. “Will you let me do my job?” he spits. “I can do this
Isabel. We don’t have to prove you’re innocent. We just have to cast a shadow of doubt. No jury will convict you if they’re not convinced.”

  He makes it sound so easy.

  “But what about Alicia and Jody?”

  “Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  I rest my head in my hands.

  What if he’s right?

  If anyone can defeat them, it’s Brian. He’s one of the top lawyers in the country.

  But what if that’s not enough?

  “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  “OK,” I finally submit. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  *

  In my dreams, I pictured this moment many times. I imagined the crowd of waiting paparazzi. I felt my muscles tense as they zeroed in on me with their telephoto lenses and thrust their microphones in my face. But in reality, the security guards escort me through the back entrance and lead me quietly inside. I am almost disappointed.

  This is the most important day of my life! Doesn’t anybody care?

  The courtroom itself seems smaller than they look on TV. I had assumed I was going to be sitting with Brian, but instead, I am seated in a semi-partitioned area at the back, with a custody officer for company. I spot Millrose, sitting importantly beside the prosecution lawyer. It takes me a moment to place her. It seems so long ago since I sat in her interview room, watching my life unravel.

  I sense people watching me from the public viewing area behind. It is an uncomfortable feeling – one that’s grown all too familiar. Nervously, I glance round to see who’s there. Kate and Rhett smile back broadly - a little too broadly while Deacon sits like a stone beside them, his shoulders stiff as boards. Our eyes meet, but his expression is grim. He’s under no illusions – this is going to be tough.

  During the long, agonising wait, I worry incessantly about the safety procedures for the building. Visitors have to go through a metal detector, but what about matches? Flints? Sticks? Alicia can start a fire from anything. Anywhere. I’ve seen her.

  “Court rise.”

  A deferential hush falls over the courtroom as the door opens. Judge Bagshott is a walking skeleton. His feet barely touch the floor as he sweeps into the courtroom, tall and imposing in his wig and gown. He barely even looks my way as he sits down and begins to wade through the proceedings.

  This is all so surreal.

  I bite my lip as the prosecution lawyer begins to set out his case. He paints me as this awful, callous person who sets fires for both pleasure and profit and says that I attacked Holly because she’s not the girlfriend I wanted for my brother. I glance nervously at the jury and twelve suspicious pairs of eyes meet mine.

  They’ve already made up their minds.

  I know I should be listening intently to the proceedings, hanging on every word that will decide my fate, but instead I find myself thinking of ten-year-old Alicia again. Now that she has jogged my memory, it is all coming back to me in big, nauseous waves. I remember a teenage Jody, sullen and weak-willed. She was a bit of a weirdo. A loner - with a suspected drug and alcohol problem. But no one reported her, or asked if she was OK. We didn’t think it was our place. In fact, the only person who noticed her at all was Julio, and he soon lost interest once the next pretty girl caught his eye.

  But what about Alicia, disturbed little Alicia? Looking back, of course there were signs, clues that something wasn’t right; the strange little scorch marks on her clothing, the smoky smell that permeated her hair. No one ever saw her play with fire, but we all knew she did.

  *

  “They make me climb into people’s houses in the middle of the night,” she told me, that fateful day.

  “To rob them?”

  “No, to burn them down.”

  “Really?” I raised my eyebrows sceptically. She could tell I didn’t believe her.

  You see, I’d met Alicia’s father and older brother when she and Jody arrived at camp. They’d seemed warm and friendly, full of amusing banter. I quite fancied the brother, actually. He had curly black hair and smelled of musky aftershave. So it was for his benefit, rather than the dad’s, that I recounted Alicia’s tall tale at Parents’ Day, but both laughed it up a storm. I had no reason to believe they were not who they seemed to be. No reason to think anything sinister.

  *

  As I sit, trembling in the dock, Alicia’s pitiful little voice rings in my ears:

  “Please don’t make me go home, Isabel. I can’t – I just can’t!”

  But I just thought she was making excuses. Everybody loved Camp Windylake. No one wanted the summer to be over.

  Why go after me? I wonder. Why not the father? The brother? My crime seems so small by comparison.

  A familiar figure slips into the public gallery.

  It’s Julio. He came.

  I force myself to focus on what’s happening. The first witness is making her way to the stand.

  Oh god, it’s Holly.

  She looks awful – thin and pale, with a long scar that runs all the way down her temple. I plead with my eyes, but she looks away. Flinches when she accidentally glances in my direction, as if I’m too painful to look at. I look back at Julio again, but he has eyes only for Holly.

  He’s not here for me.

  And with this crushing realisation, I sink a little lower.

  The prosecution lawyer asks Holly what kind of relationship she had with me, prior to the assault.

  I watch as she takes a deep breath.

  “She never liked me. I could tell.”

  That’s not true!

  “She would act friendly when Julio was around, but as soon as he left the room, it was another story.”

  “What?”

  The whole courtroom turns round to stare at me. I hadn’t meant to speak out loud; I was just so shocked by Holly’s deceit. The judge transfixes me with his glare and puts his twiggy finger to his lips. He might as well put a gun to my head. I am mute, gagged, unable to say anything as Holly continues to run down my character.

  “Can you give me an example?”

  “Yes, when Isabel came for Christmas, I thought we were all having a lovely time, but when Julio left the room, she leaned over to me and said:

  ‘You need to break it off with Julio…before you get hurt.’ It was the way she said it that got to me. Her voice sounded really chilling. It sounded like…a threat.”

  It wasn’t like that at all – those weren’t even the words I used. I only asked her if she was sure she knew what she was doing. There was nothing sinister about it at all. I was only looking out for Holly!

  How can she do this to me?

  “Can you tell us what happened on the night you were attacked?”

  “Yes – I finished work late and I was just about to go home when I got an abusive phone call from Isabel. I’d been getting a lot of those in the weeks before the attack. Usually, I just ignored them, but I’d had enough. I decided to go over to her house and have it out with her once and for all.”

  “Do you remember what happened next?”

  “Yes – I arrived at her house about midnight, but I didn’t go in straight away. I started to have second thoughts. I wasn’t even sure she would still be up, although I could see a light on.”

  “But you did go in?”

  “Yes. The curtain twitched and I realised she must have seen me. It’s all a bit of a blur after that. I remember sitting in her living room, talking and drinking coffee, and it was all quite civilised, except I was getting awfully sleepy. Then Isabel said she had a box of Julio’s things in the garage, and could I give them to him? I said I’d go with her to get it, but that’s all I can remember.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand. Why not finish the job? Why not go all out and say that I was the one who attacked her? That’s clearly what she’s implying. But Holly hasn’t done that. She’s left that little, niggling room for doubt. That’s the way Alicia likes it. She knows it’s the not knowing that drives me crazy.

  Bu
t worse is still to come. Julio is called to the stand.

  “Isabel Anderson is your sister?”

  Julio wrinkles up his face, as if he’s just swallowed a spider.

  “Half-sister, yes.”

  It’s like he’s ashamed of me!

  “How did she react when you started going out with her best friend, Kate?”

  “Delighted – she was over the moon.”

  “And when you married her?”

  “So excited. She helped organise the whole thing. You’d think she was the one getting married.”

  “So how did she take it when you broke up?”

  “Not well at all. She didn’t speak to me for several months.”

  “Would you say it affected her badly?”

  He clears his throat. “She was devastated.”

  “And when did she start speaking to you again?”

  “When I invited her over for Christmas. I wanted her to meet Holly and see that I was serious about her.”

  “How did Isabel react when she met Holly?”

  Julio shifts uncomfortably. “I thought she liked her at first but…”

  “Go on.”

  “Then she started hounding her, ringing her up at all times of the day and night. She wanted Holly out of my life,” he pauses dramatically. “At any cost.”

  My jaw drops open. The lying toad!

  “How far do you think she was willing to go to achieve this?”

  Julio gestures towards poor, damaged Holly.

  “See for yourself.”

  *

  As time goes by, the audience in the public gallery dwindles. Most days it’s just me, slumped, semi-comatose in my chair as the lawyers argue over the finer details. And each night I return to my cramped, squalid, little cell, the events of the day replaying in my head, as my cellmates snore.

  Kate is cross-examined about the prosecution’s theory that I did this to get her back with Julio. To me, the theory seems ludicrous, and yet, when I look over at the jury, they all look thoughtful and solemn-faced. But Kate is the only person who will admit to seeing Holly at the reunion. None of the other ex-campers will testify, and the bar staff all claim not to remember. How on earth can Brian prove my innocence when so many people are willing to lie?