How to Kill Your Family(58)
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 opera.
‘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?’
Kelly is obviously annoyed that I’ve fascinated so many, as though I don’t deserve the dubious attention I’ve received. As though it’ll springboard me onto a reality dance programme and get me a haircare deal and a photo spread in OK! magazine to tearfully talk about my ordeal. After months of living cheek by jowl with the woman, I know this to be exactly Kelly’s dream.