The Dead Ex(48)

The first year had been the worst. Mum had been taken into rehab then. Scarlet hadn’t been allowed to see her much because of some ‘bitch’ in charge of the prison who had put her on ‘restricted visiting’. But when they did let her, Mum didn’t ask her anything about school or what it was like with Dee and Robert. All she wanted to know was whether Scarlet had brought her some weed. ‘Why not, you silly girl?’

Then Mum would start screaming and shouting so that the officers took her away, leaving Scarlet in tears.

It was Dee who had comforted her when the social worker brought her home. Dee who sat her on her knee even though she’d been a big girl of nine then. Dee who told her that her own parents had done drugs too and how they could really mess up your brain. ‘Your mum loves you,’ she’d sighed. ‘She just needs time to get cleaned up.’

Her foster mother had been right. In the last couple of years, Mum had got her privileges back. This meant that Scarlet was allowed to visit more often. Mum stopped pestering her for drugs but she was still thin, and her lovely blonde hair was lank and greasy. She didn’t smell the same either. It was hard to say what she did smell of. But it wasn’t patchouli. Mum had laughed when she’d asked her why she didn’t wear it any more. ‘It’s not on the canteen list, love.’

When Scarlet had asked what that meant, Mum had explained that you could only buy things like shampoo or toothpaste that were on this special list that had nothing to do with a real canteen or café. But you had to have money to get what you wanted. Mum’s padmate had loads of money which her family sent in. But Mum only got a few quid from doing jobs in the prison like cleaning or ironing.

That’s when Scarlet started entering photos for competitions through Robert’s photographic magazines that came in the post every month. She’d won ￡50 for the first one. ‘Are you sure you want to give it to your mum?’ asked Dee.

Of course she was!

‘I don’t know if it’s allowed, love.’

So she’d asked the social worker, who ‘made enquiries’ and found out that they could pay it into a special account which the prison would then give to Mum to spend on canteen items. When Scarlet visited next, Mum immediately asked if she’d won any more competitions. ‘Not yet, but Robert says I show promise …’

Mum’s eyes had narrowed. ‘I can’t buy my fags on promise. You’d better get snapping, my girl. Don’t you want to help me?’

It was almost, Scarlet told herself, as if prison was making her mother into a different person. Someone who was harder and even selfish at times. Then Mum would go the other way, especially at Christmas and birthdays, when she’d cry down the phone and say she wished she could afford to send her nice things instead of the crappy purple felt handbag she’d made in the prison craft class.

‘I don’t want any presents,’ Scarlet would say. ‘I just want you.’

That made them both cry even more.

At school, Scarlet put on a brave front, just like Mum told her. When the other kids had boasted about what they’d done in the Christmas holidays and how they’d been to visit grandparents, she just kept quiet. When she got home, she’d go straight up to her room and talk to Mum’s picture: the same one that Robert had mended, which she now kept next to her bed because it was safer. ‘It won’t be for ever,’ she would say. And the little girl in the red spotty dress seemed to understand.

But gradually Mum had started to be more cheerful. ‘Not long now, if my parole goes well.’ Then she’d rub her eyes with her hands. ‘I could have been out of this sodding place if I hadn’t started using again.’

‘Using what?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m so sorry, love. I really am.’

Scarlet wondered if it had something to do with the big woman with the red heart tattoos on her neck who always sat near them in the visiting hall, waiting for family who never turned up. On one terrible day, the woman had thrown a cup of coffee at them. It had only just missed.

‘Bastard!’ Mum had screamed. ‘Try hurting my little girl again and I’ll fucking kill you.’ Two officers came racing up, taking her and the coffee woman by the arms. ‘Let me stay with my daughter,’ Mum had yelled, kicking and fighting as they tried to take her out of the room. Furiously, she spat at one of the guards. ‘It’s bad enough that the bitch cut back our visits. You lot are supposed to help families stay together – not divide a mother and her child. How are we meant to have a proper relationship?’

The social worker – a new one – who had brought Scarlet back from the prison that day and had stayed for a cuppa, shook her head. ‘Shocking. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Scarlet was so upset that she began to get her old nightmares all over again. ‘Shhh,’ soothed Dee, who would come into her room when this happened and hold her against her shoulder, patting her back. It was so comforting. ‘I’ve always wanted a daughter like you,’ she murmured. If Scarlet closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was a child again and that it was Mum who was soothing her instead. Yet in the morning, Scarlet would always feel guilty. It was Mum who was her real mum. Then she’d go really quiet and not want to talk to Dee.

‘Would you like me to go with you to the prison next time?’ offered Dee during one of their better days. ‘It might help her to know you’re safe with us. I could tell her how well you’re doing.’