by Bella Mackie
‘I understand that this is weird for you. Our friendship is intense, wonderfully so. You’re my family, my best friend, my surrogate girlfriend, I suppose. For a lot of our life I guess I thought we were bound to be together – but you never let it happen, did you?’ I must have flinched because he powered on. ‘Grace, you didn’t! You kept us at a level you felt safe with. People want to love you and you’re repelled by it.’ He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. ‘Anyway, fine, you made it clear and I went with it because I know you give what you can. But Caro wants more. I love Caro, and she loves me. And I can’t indulge this, Grace. I just can’t. I knew you wouldn’t be able to just be happy about it – Mum warned me, C warned me. I understand it. But that doesn’t mean that you can do this again.’
He looked at me then, with a soft smile, and rubbed my hand. ‘We won’t change. But you can’t talk about her like that anymore. You need to see this for what it is. I’m not abandoning you. I’m not your dad – this is just what happens in life.’ He gave me a little hug and walked off towards Waterloo. I didn’t say a word. I hated myself for being so weak. I hated that he was right. I hated that I had buckled. I hated them all.
Caro and Jimmy held their official engagement party a month later.
We hadn’t spoken much in the intervening weeks, but I went because I was invited and because if I didn’t, then it would become a thing. And worse, she’d think that I was devastated and she’d enjoy it. I wore a dark bottle green velvet suit with a white silk T-shirt and ignored the slight nausea I felt at how much the whole ensemble had cost. Red lipstick was applied. We dress for other women. It’s a banal cliché but it’s true. She’d take my meaning from it. That was worth the credit card bill.
I got there at 10 p.m., having had a drink around the corner at a local bar when I judged that I’d arrived too early. Caro’s parties usually didn’t get going until at least 9.30 and I wasn’t going to waste time with her guffawing friends when everyone was still sober. Their flat was on the fourth floor of a mansion block with views over the park. The building was beautiful, with marble steps and an original lift with brass gates. I never saw anyone else in the lobby or hallways. Rich people owned these flats. Rich people who have several homes around the world which they call ‘bases’. None of them homes which have overflowing junk drawers or old bicycles clogging up hallways.
The party was loosening up when I walked in the door. A smallish group of Jimmy’s mates congregated in the kitchen – a few school friends that I liked well enough, and some dull blokes from university that he refused to shrug off completely. But mainly, the flat was full of Caro’s friends. Girls who were nervous level thin, dressed in muted silk dresses. They all had posh-girl hair – you know the kind – thick, shiny, long, looks careless but the highlights alone cost £500 and are anything but. The men were all in identikit chinos and blue shirts. Occasionally there was a loafer on display, but mainly it was trainers in an attempt to look more relaxed than they really were. Pretty much everyone was white. The music was turned up loud but nobody was dancing.
I nodded at a few faces I recognised but kept moving towards the drinks table, grabbed a glass of wine and headed out onto the balcony. I’ve never been someone who enjoys parties. The amount of small talk involved depletes my energy and makes my whole body tense up. Not because I’m shy, but because it’s so boring it makes me want to die. Life is so short, and we spend so much of it talking to terrible people about the minutiae of their nothing lives. I cannot do it with any enthusiasm. It’s no better in prison, you know. You might think that there would be less bullshit filler chat. You’re in jail, you don’t need to talk about the weather, or your commute or your kid’s art project. But prison makes people even smaller than usual, desperate to cling on to reassuring normality. That means there’s a lot of chat about breakfast options or discussion about what’s on TV that night. And unlike in normal life, I cannot escape it.
* * *
I light a cigarette on the balcony, slotting myself in between two groups of people I don’t know, and turn away so that it’s clear that I’m not trying to join in the conversation. I smoke my cigarette (I aim for one a week, like Gwyneth Paltrow does – and that is the limit of our shared experience) and listen to the conversation going on around me. Someone called Archie is going skiing at Easter with his new girlfriend and someone called Laura is pretending to find it sweet but her increasingly shrill cooing suggests that she hopes said girlfriend falls off the mountain. Someone on my right is telling a story about how he once met our dreadful Prime Minister at a bar off the Kings Road, and thought he was ‘genuinely a very funny bloke’. The conversations all come to a stop when Caro emerges onto the balcony. Her tiny body is sheathed in an emerald green slip dress, which requires no bra (posh girls don’t need bras), her hair is loose, and she’s barefoot. That suggests a sort of next-level nonchalance, doesn’t it? As though you’re usually holidaying in villas where maids sweep the floors constantly and someone comes to give you regular pedicures. Everyone cheers when she steps into the group, quick to proffer fags and wine. She spots me, and draws me towards her with a slim wrist.
‘Hello, darling, so good of you to come. I see you’ve got a drink. Jimmy is inside panicking about glasses but I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you – go and find him. I know he’ll be so relieved that everything is … OK.’ She looks at me with a tiny raise of an eyebrow, just the hint of a smile. He told her. Of course.
I go inside, not wishing to talk to Jim but desperate to get away from Archie and Laura and some guy called Phillip who’s now loudly suggesting that someone bust out the Charlie. It’s not 1989, Phil, you fucking embarrassment.
I find Jimmy on the sofa with a nice girl called Iris who he works with. I am given a bear hug, the kind that only a big man can give, and I know that he’s determined to forget our conversation and he’s very physically trying to tell me to do the same. So I do. Tonight he pats me on the back and grins with relief that everything is well between us. The flat fills up, booze is consumed until the only bottles left are the kind of chardonnays you find in Tesco so I switch to vodka. By 1 a.m., I can tell most of the people still here are high. I’ve never taken drugs – a classic need to stay in control – and I’m never offered them. But I can see the signs, the glassy pupils, the inner gum chewing, the fucking inane conversation (though frankly, that could just be the company). Caro is swaying in the middle of the room, rubbing her own arm. Jim walks over to her and takes her hand. She pulls away abruptly, says something and turns away. He tries again and she shoves him. Not hard, but sloppily, visibly.
‘Let’s all wake up a bit, you guys are getting sleepy,’ she says, and heads to the kitchen. I look across at Jimmy and make a face – trying to convey that I’m here and also less obviously that his fiancée is a nightmare – but he looks at me with something veering on contempt and sits down. Caro emerges from the kitchen with a silver tray teeming with shot glasses and people assemble around her.
‘To my betrothed,’ she says, before downing her glass and slinging an arm around a brunette next to her. She doesn’t offer Jimmy one. I can feel the rage build up again, at her for being a bitch, at Jimmy for letting her behave like this. Someone has brought a cake, covered in chocolate ganache and bearing the letters C and J in pink icing. It has been forgotten by the baker in the frantic desire to get drunk. I grab a knife and start carving it up into rough slices. Putting one on a napkin, I hold it aloft.
‘Caro, have some cake. I know it’s not your usual fare but you’ve got to keep your strength up, don’t you? Don’t want to lose that famous right hook of yours.’
The group huddling in the doorway titter. Caro looks at me, her mouth frozen in fury and stalks off. Jimmy, who was too far away to hear what I was saying, walks towards me with purpose and pulls me into the toilet.
‘What are you doing?’ he hisses, leaning on the sink and pushing me down onto the seat. ‘Are you trying to pick a fight with her at our en
gagement party? I thought we’d agreed that you were going to at least try and be happy for us.’
‘How can I do that when you’ve agreed to marry a narcissist who seems to actively dislike you?’ I said, standing up. ‘I want to respect you, not pander to you. Why do you expect me to be kind but you don’t ask the same from Caro?’ I push past him, and past the queue of people waiting for the bathroom to become available.
The night has ramped up now, it feels frantic and sharp. It’s not a happy show of love, we aren’t here to celebrate a union, we’re here to indulge Caro. But in what? I want to leave, but I can’t abandon Jimmy here with a drunk fiancée and a group of people who probably don’t even know his full name. I sit in a corner of the sitting room and pretend to be on the edge of whatever group is nearest. I pretend to check emails, I break my strict limit and smoke more cigarettes. The party thins out, people stumbling into the bedroom to get their coats, pulling away from Caro as she entreats them to stay. She keeps pace only with herself, her small body unable to stay still. Jimmy hasn’t even attempted to try to engage her again, but he won’t look at me. Eventually, at 3 a.m., it’s just the three of us and one other woman left in the flat. The woman is talking earnestly to Jimmy, and over the music (which Caro has cranked up) I catch some words: ‘Worried …’, ‘Eaten?’, ‘Again …’ I imagine they’ve both seen this version of Caro before and are waiting to intervene and get her into bed. But Caro is in her own world, changing songs every minute or so, pouring another drink, numbing herself. I sit and watch, wondering whether to call a cab and leave them to sort her out, but abruptly, she stops dancing and looks at me.
‘Have you got any tobacco? I need a fag, it’s so hot in here.’ Jimmy gets up and starts to suggest we all call it a night but she cuts him off and I pull out my cigarettes and tell her I’ll come with her. Jimmy finally looks at me.
‘It’s fine. Stay here. I’ll sort this,’ I say as I usher her down the corridor and onto the balcony.
Caro stumbles outside and leans against the balustrade. I produce cigarettes and light her one. I stand over her, aware of how tiny she seems.
‘You are behaving like a lunatic,’ I say, as I drag on my fag. She doesn’t look at me. ‘You have made this night a nightmare. I can only assume you’re desperately unhappy to behave like this. Why are you marrying Jim? Break it off and find someone who has a nice family estate and will let you starve yourself to your heart’s content as long as you look nice on his arm. It’ll be easy. You’ll be happier, Jim won’t be gradually destroyed. I won’t have to pretend to tolerate you. Go on, Caro, you know I’m right.’
She pulls herself up onto the lip of the balcony so that she’s sitting astride it and throws her head back. She’s laughing. It’s the most natural she’s been all night. Caro coughs, sits up straight and tucks her hair behind her ear.
‘You are so stupid,’ she drawls. ‘You are SO STUPID. I don’t want to marry some bonehead with a trust fund. Of course it’s what I should do, but I’d die of boredom. I want to marry Jimmy – he’s kind and he adores me – not like some fusty banker who’d treat me with disdain and fuck his secretary at any opportunity. I want Jimmy.’
I can’t help but roll my eyes. ‘Such a cliché, Caro. Wouldn’t therapy have been cheaper? At least it might help with some of your other issues. They’re not going away, no matter how hard Jim tries to help. Why make him a wreck too?’
There is no point to this, I think. She hates me, we are trying to wound each other with words and neither of us will really land a fatal blow. Caro’s pupils are enormous, black and boring into me.
‘Oh stop it. You don’t get to have an opinion here, you fucking single white female. Wearing green to upstage me at my own engagement party. Christ, I shouldn’t even have to indulge your jealousy and delusions. Everyone’s a wreck, Grace, you should understand that. But we’re adults. We’ll work out a good understanding. I’ll earn the money and he’ll be an upstanding chap and our life will be nice. Simple. Normal. I want normal. He won’t be like Lionel, never there, never warm, always desperate for the next thing.’ She draws on her cigarette. ‘It’ll all be just grand. But for that to happen, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you probably need to not be A. THING.’ She emphasises those last two words, looking at me, not laughing now.
‘Jimmy loves you, you’re like a weird sister wife, aren’t you? Always around, but not quite his. Part of the family, but you’re not – not really. Sophie is obsessed with a good deed. You were just one of them. Why didn’t you take the hint when you hit 18 and slink off? A grown adult with a boring job isn’t quite the prize that a child with a dead mother is. You’re no use.’
She’s almost shouting, flailing her cigarette in the air. My hands are curled into tight little balls, and I can feel the urge to pull at my throat welling up in me. I move towards her and she leans back, her eyes widening just a little. My head is boiling hot now, and I take one useless deep breath, trying to dispel the adrenaline I can feel flooding my entire body.
* * *
What might I have done differently in that moment? Would I have pushed her violently, right in the chest, forcing her backwards over the balcony? Would I have grabbed at her foot as she fell, realising my impulsive rage and trying to rectify it – all in the space of a second? Or would I have loomed over her and said something equally as devastating in the hope that I would somehow gain a valuable point or two off her? It’s something I’ve mulled over many times, an interesting little ‘choose your own adventure’ where the path you take leads to dramatically different end scenarios. In all my revised scenarios, I deal with it less impulsively, with a little more style. But then, that’s hindsight for you. In reality, I did nothing. Caro fell off that balcony all by herself, her thin little body unable to cushion her fall. She was dead within seconds. I told you I won. That is, of course, until I didn’t.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
George Thorpe runs through every development surrounding my appeal. He’s meticulous, I’ll give him that. So meticulous that I’m nodding along silently wanting him to hurry up and just give me the highlights. The man seems to think he has to recap every single part of the case before we can get to the part which hopefully gets me out of this place. Am I bored by my own wrongful conviction? Now there’s a thing.
Once he leaves, curtailed by the buzzer which signals the end of visiting time here at Limehouse, we’re escorted back to our cells in silence. I want to write down what he’s said and absorb it all in my own time, but prison doesn’t recognise the need to be alone. Sure, you can be incredibly lonely here, but you’re never actually given any time to just be by yourself. And for me, that usually means that Kelly will be hovering nearby. In this case, she’s sitting on my bunk when I get back.
I don’t believe in God, but I swear sometimes I think that Kelly was sent by some vengeful angel to piss me off. If an all-seeing deity really does live in the sky, then bravo for conjuring up a suitable punishment for my actions in the shape of Kelly McIntosh as a cellmate. Kelly is bent over her foot, filing her toenails on my mattress. There are nail clippings on my bed.
‘Wotcha!’ she says, without looking up. ‘How was the brief?’
As far as I know, Kelly has never attempted to appeal her sentence, nor met with a lawyer, nor protested her innocence like so many others do in here. As if anyone else cares about your situation when they have their own to contend with. It’s like hearing about other people’s children – or worse – hearing about other people’s tiresome mental health problems. She’s been in here before. This time it’s for blackmailing men over sexy photos, when she was younger it was for robbing people on the Caledonian Road. She likes to say that the crime rate in N1 dropped by 80 per cent when she was put away. Kelly is a woman who doesn’t like change. Her crime works, she says, blithely ignoring her repeated incarcerations, why change your modus operandi? Except she doesn’t say modus operandi because Kelly would undoubtedly think that was a Latin American soap o
pera.
‘Oh the usual,’ I say as I hover over her and look pointedly at the toenail shavings with what I hope is a suitable amount of withering disgust. Nothing gets to Kelly though. You cannot shame her, upset her, embarrass her. It would be fascinating, if she weren’t such an empty vessel. A psychologist could spend hours with her before reluctantly concluding that maybe there’s not always something hidden in the depths of the psyche. Some people inhabit shallower pools. Kelly spent most of her time in the paddling variety.
‘So are you getting out or what? Did your fella find what he was looking for? I suppose you need a witness, huh? Is your mate still not talking to ya?’ It bothers me that Kelly takes such an interest. I’m sure she’s looked up my case, since I barely tell her anything and yet she asks me questions that make it obvious that she knows more than she should. The story is out there, the Daily Mail practically had a reporter assigned to my trial, I can’t expect other people not to want to know more. But I don’t want anyone in here gleaning anything that they can embellish and giving it to a journalist when I get out. I want to disappear back into my old life. Or not so much old life but the life I planned to start before this hiccup.
I give her a bland run-through of my meeting, how we’re hoping that there will be a decision soon, how I feel confident in my appeal. She moves off my bed and sits cross-legged on the floor like a little girl as I shake down my sheet and smooth out the pillow, desperately hoping her feet haven’t been on it.
‘Isn’t it mad,’ she says as she starts painting her toenails a lurid shade of coral, ‘how I’ve done so much bad shit and nobody knows my name, and you ended up, like, a celebrity for something you didn’t even do?’