Poppy's Hero

by Rachel Billington

  ‘Angel! Angel!’ called Angel’s mum.

  ‘Got to help with the kids.’ Angel sloped off dejectedly.

  Poppy’s phone rang. It was Will.

  ‘He’s been sent to an island,’ said Poppy drearily. ‘We saw the sweat box. Maybe he even saw us.’

  ‘An island! Like Alcatraz or something? Do you think they got wind of our plans?’ Will’s enthusiasm seemed as high as ever. ‘Why don’t you drop by and I’ll look it up on the internet. Can’t be many prisons on islands.’

  ‘OK’ said Poppy glumly. Will had a strange way of making her feel better, but she couldn’t see how he could make a prison on an island seem like a good thing. ‘Jude and I’ll be along in a minute.’

  ‘You really mean an island island?’ asked Will.

  PART TWO

  A large white van winds its way slowly up a steep road round the edge of a cliff. Below, a steep drop down to the sea. It is evening, the sun just above the horizon. A strong wind creates patterns of glinting breakers on the water. Instead of rolling steadily in to the shore, they break in all directions, as if there are warring currents under the surface.

  The men inside the van can only see this dimly through the darkened windows. They sit uncomfortably in small cage-like cubicles. It has been a long journey. The air is stuffy and smelly. Instead of stopping for the toilet, they have been told to use bottles.

  The driver is relieved to see the heavy walls, the moat, the stone archway which herald the end of their journey. The sun is dropping fast and soon it will be night. He drives the van in through the arch and stops.

  Several prison officers appear.

  ‘You’re late.’

  ‘Paperwork before we left. Usual muddle over how many lucky fellas were joining us for the ride.’ The driver stretches, putting his arms above his head.

  ‘Should have four. So it says here.’ The officer consults a clipboard.

  ‘Three. Sorry to disappoint.’ They both laugh. Better let out the cattle, then.’ The officer goes to the side of the van.

  ‘Quick as you like.’ The driver bends from side to side. ‘Cup of tea and I’m off again. And they say prisoners have a bad time!’

  They both laugh again in a companionable way.

  The door is opened and three men stumble outside. They blink, although it is almost dark in the courtyard. The wind has stayed outside.

  The tall man looks up at the sky. He sees the evening star shining brightly. He wonders when he’ll see that again.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Two officers take hold of the man. ‘The quicker we are, the quicker we can all knock off. Might even get a nice cup of tea.’

  The tall man takes one more look at the sky, at its velvet softness and infinite horizon. Then he follows the officer to a small brown door.

  As they wait for the door to be unlocked, he shakes his hands a little so that the handcuffs sit more loosely.

  ‘

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Term had already ended before Irena told Poppy she’d arranged for them to visit her dad in his island prison. ‘It’s called Her Majesty’s Prison Castlerock’, she read from a piece of paper, with a look of doom.

  Meanwhile Will was recuperating at home, and Jude had gone off with her family for a holiday in Spain. Poppy hadn’t seen Angel for ages, until the day before their visit to HMP Castlerock he caught up with her in the street. He sat astride what looked like a girl’s pink bike.

  ’Hey! How’s things? Haven’t seen you since the Great Escape That Wasn’t.’ He smiled. ‘Bit of a flop, that was.’

  ‘Suppose one good thing is your dad didn’t have to go into seg.’ Poppy spoke stiffly. Nothing about it seemed funny to her.

  ‘’He’s in seg anyway,’ Angel shrugged.

  Poppy was shocked. ‘Why?’ A bad-un tried it on, so he got the boiling water treatment over him, didn’t he. My dad doesn’t let people mess him around.’

  Since Poppy had nothing to say to this, Angel added, with another shrug, ‘That’s prison, isn’t it. How’s your dad?

  ‘We’re going to see him tomorrow.’

  ‘On the island.’ Angel looked thoughtful. ‘You know, my dad said there was never a chance of getting him out of HMP G. Slops. Far too many locked doors between him and the big world.’

  ‘Then why did he help us?’ exclaimed Poppy crossly.

  ‘Bit of fun, he said. Nice to see kids having fun.’

  ‘Fun!’ Poppy felt like hitting Angel. But she wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t hit her back, and he was bigger and stronger than her. ‘I thought you were my friend,’ she said instead.

  Angel’s expression changed. ‘Yeah.’ He frowned. ‘Apologies in order. Just in a bad mood. Too much time. Nothing to do. Hope your dad’s OK.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll see you around.’ Poppy watched as Angel rode off at speed doing wheelies and skids, until a lorry slowed him down.

  ‘We’ll take a picnic,’ Irena announced, when Poppy got home.

  ‘We’ll need a tent, then,’ said Poppy. The weather had been wet and windy for several days.

  ‘What do you mean – a tent?’ Irena looked suspicious. ‘We are not to stay overnight. I have bought day return tickets on the train.’

  ‘Only joking. I was thinking of the rain.’ Poppy knew she was behaving badly – she was nervous about going to the new prison. Will had insisted on looking it up on the internet.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ he’d squeaked. ‘It’s like a medieval dungeon. Makes me shiver just to look at it.’

  ‘Calm down. It is my dad in there.’

  ‘On a cliff top above raging seas,’ continued Will, ‘underground dungeons, secret tunnels down to the beach. Honestly, it’s more like Alcatraz than Alcatraz.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘Not sure. Here, I’ll read you out some more. It’s for lifers – that means murderers, mostly – or men on determinate sentences – don’t know what that means.’

  Soon Will had given up on the facts and gone back to the thrilling bits. ‘In the fifties, a prisoner using knotted sheets got over the wall and escaped. He still hasn’t been recaptured, which makes him the longest escapee in the world.’

  Poppy decided to try out some of Will’s exciting bits on her mum. They were sitting on the 9.35 train from Waterloo to the seaside resort of Blackmore Bay, which was the nearest railway station to the prison.

  ‘Do you know, in 2004 a burglar imprisoned in HMP Castlerock escaped in a laundry van. He used the metal edge of his lighter to cut his way into it, then popped off to see his sick mother.’

  ‘Ssshh.’ Irena looked anxiously at the other passengers. They were mostly families, some with buckets and spades or rolled up wind-breaks. They obviously weren’t heading for the prison, Poppy thought jealously.

  ‘I was only giving you a bit of local history,’ she said to her mum.

  ‘Yes, darling.’ As well as making a too-big picnic the day before, Irena had washed her long chestnut hair and set it in rollers. She looked very pretty. She was wearing make-up too. ‘At least it’s not raining.’

  Poppy stared out of the window. ‘Not yet. Just windy and cool.’ Even so, she’d rather be sitting on a beach than going to a prison.

  On the other side of the aisle, three small children and their mum were squeezed into two seats. They didn’t have any obvious beach equipment. Perhaps they were going to the prison too. They were already squabbling and their mum looked exhausted. Poppy thought it odd that there’d always been this other world of children with dads – or mums, she supposed – in prison and, if her dad hadn’t been sent there, she’d never have known about it. It was a secret world, but not one she wanted to be part of. It was the same kind of feeling she’d had standing on the pavement outside Grisewood Slops and seeing people passing by as if the prison didn’t exist.

  ‘If you don’t sit still,’ said the exhausted mum in a shrill voice, ‘I’ll tell your dad and he’ll have something to say!’

  A
dad, then, thought Poppy, but that doesn’t prove anything either way. She pressed her face to the window.

  ‘What are you thinking, darling?’ Her mum put her arm round her shoulders. Rain,’ lied Poppy. ‘Will it? Won’t it?’

  ‘Won’t,’ said Irena. ‘Would you like a pastry now?’

  ‘Thanks.’ As Poppy munched, the train stopped and more holidaymakers got in. The teenage girls were particularly loud, their lipsticked mouths contorting in laughter. Poppy stared at one with silver-blue eye shadow and a blond quiff and wondered if she’d be like that in a few years. At least they were having fun. Then she wondered if Jude was having fun in Spain.

  The train became more and more full as they neared Blackmore Bay. People were standing all along the aisles. Outside the windows, a glint of sun streaked the green countryside.

  ‘There,’ said Irena, ‘I knew we were going to be lucky with the weather.’

  ‘We’re being welcomed to the Jurassic Coast.’ said Poppy. She was reading a sign on the station platform. They had arrived.

  ‘And now,’ Irena gathered together the bags, ‘we must look for a taxi. The bus is infrequent, I’m told, and eight miles is too far to walk.’

  ‘Don’t we need a boat?’ asked Poppy.

  ‘There’s a long causeway to the island.’

  The happy crowds passed them, all heading to the beach. Poppy sniffed the sea air, but there were too many cars in front of the station to get even a whiff of salt or seaweed.

  They waited over half an hour while another train came in, and eventually a taxi appeared.

  ‘Castlerock, if you please.’ Irena bent forward to the driver but he didn’t understand her accent.

  ‘The prison,’ shouted Poppy defiantly.

  The driver turned round to look at them. He was old and hairy, ‘Which one?’ he asked.

  ‘Castlerock,’ repeated Irena, and Poppy saw she’d gone red in the face. They had been able to catch a bus to Grisewood Slops without anyone knowing where they were going.

  ‘That’ll be twenty pounds,’ said the driver. As if they were thieves and couldn’t pay, thought Poppy.

  They began to circle the back of the town, passing green spaces and low houses until suddenly, on their right, Poppy saw a harbour crammed with smart white boats.

  ‘Look at that!’ She nudged her mum.

  Irena, who had been staring downwards, hardly lifted her head. ‘Mmm.’

  ‘It’s all boats and sailing here,’ said the driver. ‘Pretty. Pity they can’t see it where we’re headed.’ The driver’s eyes twinkled at Poppy in the rear view mirror. ‘Would be a grandstand view if it wasn’t for those mean old walls.’

  Irena didn’t answer, and Poppy turned to face the window so the driver couldn’t catch her eye again.

  Once they’d passed the harbour, the road began to climb. Not much sign of an island, thought Poppy. But a few minutes later, they were back to sea level and there in front of them was the sea stretched out ahead, green and shiny under the clearing sky.

  ‘Famous beach to your right,’ said the driver, pointing to a seemingly endless expanse of shingle, ’and Castle Island straight ahead.’

  Her mother had been right. A long causeway stretched out into the water, bordered by low walls. At the other end of it, a brooding mass of rock rose steeply. On its lower slopes there were houses but, as Poppy peered out, crouching to look upwards, she could see great cliffs and barren rock.

  ‘Up to the top we go!’ said the driver cheerfully.

  At the far end of the causeway, on the island itself, the road began twisting sharply upwards. Soon they had left behind the few houses and instead there was grey tufty grass with a steep incline on one side, and on the other, a breathtaking drop to the dazzling sea below

  Poppy’s hands were sweating and her heart was beating too fast. She could no longer see the top of the island. Then, without warning, they were in a deep cutting in the cliff side. It was lined with heavy slabs of stone covered with yellow netting. It was as if they were entering a giant’s lair, or maybe a castle belonging to a wicked king.

  ‘Mum!’ Poppy nudged her mother.

  The walls had become higher and higher and now they were closing over their heads into a dark and narrow tunnel. Poppy gripped her mum’s hand.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said the driver.

  There was light at the end of the tunnel. Then they were out and facing smooth high walls which stretched away in either direction. Round them circled a deep, dry moat.

  ‘Her Majesty’s Prison Castlerock,’ announced the driver, as if they hadn’t guessed.

  Irena scrabbled in her bag for money. Poppy leapt out of the car and took deep breaths. High above her head a single seagull wheeled and cawed. The clouds were moving fast across the sky and the air smelled fresh and pure.

  Poppy’s mum joined her. She blinked nervously.

  ‘Planning on leaving later, are you?’ The driver leant out of his window.

  Irena seemed too dazed to answer so Poppy told him firmly, ‘We’ll be all right, thank you.’

  She watched as he drove away, then looked around. There were the walls, outer and inner – she could see the rolls of barbed wire on that one – and more buildings, all built of stone and very grim. She wanted to get a view of the sea, but they seemed to be in a dip.

  ‘Why’s no one else here?’ she asked.

  Her mum stared around vaguely. ‘I didn’t want to be late. There’s the visitors’ car park.’ She turned one way, and then another. ‘And there’s the visitors’ centre. We can eat our picnic inside.’

  ‘Must we? Can’t we stay outside?’

  ‘If you prefer, darling.’

  So they sat on a kerb by the car park and tried to eat the huge picnic Irena had prepared. Neither of them felt hungry. Although the air was warmer, an annoying wind kept trying to blow away the wrappings. Poppy threw away a crust and three seagulls dive-bombed from nowhere and fought for it, cawing angrily.

  ‘Don’t,’ said her mum. ‘Look at those beaks.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ protested Poppy, but she didn’t throw any more food away. She thought of having a wander to see if she could see the sea, but there were signs everywhere: No unauthorised person beyond this point.

  A few cars began to arrive, some people on foot who must have come off the bus and a couple of taxis.

  ‘We pack up now,’ said Irena.

  Slowly, following the other families, they walked over to the prison.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘So here we are, all together again.’ Big Frank’s voice was cheery, given the surroundings. Poppy was still a bit dazed after their progress from the visitors’ centre (nice and friendly) through the double walls of the prison and across a great green space the size of a football pitch, to the dreary room where they now sat. Not to mention all the security stuff: the searching, the removing of their shoes, the looking inside their mouths, the pat-downs, the suspicious questions. All this, just to see her dad.

  Poppy looked at him properly. It was weeks since she’d seen him in Grisewood Slops. Now his face was almost back to its usual brick colour, his hair was growing into curls again, and altogether he seemed more like his old self.

  ‘You look well,’ said Irena timidly.

  ‘I’m out in the open air.’ Frank took Irena’s small hand in his big palm. ‘They took one look at this big Irishman and decided to put him to work in the fields.’

  ‘But Dad, you’re not Irish,’ said Poppy. ‘You always say, you were born in England and that makes you English.’

  ‘Frank Maloney, and not Irish?’

  ‘You don’t even have an Irish accent.’ Poppy didn’t want him to be Irish because it somehow linked him to bad things in the past. It was quite enough having a Polish mother.

  ‘Only joking, Pops.’ Now Big Frank held her hand. ‘You’ll never guess what I’m doing outside.’

  ‘Growing vegetables,’ suggested Irena.

  ‘Not far off.’


  ‘In a prison?’ Poppy exclaimed.

  ‘Grow your own and eat them. Cheap labour, my darling. I started with that but I’ve moved on now.’

  ‘Go on, tell us, Frank.’

  Poppy could see that her mum was as surprised by the change in Big Frank as she was.

  ‘Ducks and chickens. A mate of mine got sick and gave me his job. Never knew what fun it was, taking care of stupid little animals. I have learnt something, too: waddling is a very inefficient way of getting somewhere quickly.’

  ‘That is good,’ said Irena seriously. ‘Maybe we get a cat for when you home.’

  Poppy assumed her mum was joking, and laughed – her dad had always said he was allergic to cats – but her dad looked suddenly sad.

  ‘Get us a drink, would you, Pops.’

  So Poppy went over to the canteen bar and while she was away, she could see her dad and mum having the sort of intense chat grown-ups have when the children are out of the way.

  It made her cross. Perhaps she wouldn’t try and get him out of this prison. After all, he seemed perfectly fine until her mum mentioned home. Looking after ducks and chickens, indeed. It sounded more like a holiday!

  Poppy plonked down the two cups of coffee and went back for her apple juice. She drank it standing up, looking round the room. Prison wasn’t new to her any more, but it still felt horrible. There was the same mix of mums and children, girlfriends and mates, grannies and grandpas. Not many grandpas, actually. And no friendly Angel.

  ‘Come on, Poppy. Sit down with us.’ Big Frank patted her chair.

  ‘I’ve been sitting all day.’

  ‘Yeah. Long way to come for a couple of hours. Glad you did, though.’

  Poppy forced herself to sit down,and her dad put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Did you ever finish that story we wrote? What was it? ‘The Rat Who Wanted to be Loved.’

  ‘Liked,’ said Poppy.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Liked, not loved.’ He couldn’t even remember the name of their book.

  ‘Oh. OK. So did you finish it?’

  ‘Will did.’