The Dead Ex(81)

I could hardly contain my nerves and excitement when the day arrived. ‘You look absolutely gorgeous,’ David said when he met me outside the register office in King’s Road.

Honestly?

I smoothed down the size 14 cream knee-length satin dress which I’d only just managed to squeeze into. What did he see in me? Clearly, some of the other guests thought the same, judging from the whispers and the looks. But it didn’t matter. David loved me, and that’s all that mattered.

‘Let’s start a family right now,’ he said during our honeymoon night in the Dorchester. I realized I didn’t need any persuading. I wanted a baby. To build something that wasn’t just my career.

I was worried that I was too old, but only two months later, I was pregnant. ‘Some women,’ said my doctor, ‘get a last-minute burst of fertility at your age.’ I hugged the news to myself, not wanting to tell David over the phone but waiting instead until our work schedules finally allowed us to spend a night together in his London apartment. He was already starting to be home far less than before.

It was worth it, though, to see his face. ‘You’re sure?’ He’d picked me up and whirled me around gently. ‘That’s amazing!’

The following week he turned up unexpectedly at my house on the prison estate, bearing two packages. One contained an oyster-silk maternity negligée. The other was a little red knitted doll with a perky yellow hat. ‘I couldn’t resist buying it from a designer craft shop in Chelsea.’ He looked as excited as a child.

‘Congratulations,’ said Patrick when I told him the news, explaining that I didn’t want it to be common knowledge yet. ‘Your husband must be over the moon.’

I’d noticed before that he hardly ever used David’s name.

‘Yes. He is.’

My husband managed to get time off for the three-month scan. ‘You don’t think I’d miss that, do you, darling? I’d move heaven and earth to get there.’

We drove together to the car park. Just as he was reversing into a space, his phone rang. ‘Don’t touch that,’ he snapped.

‘I was only trying to help.’

‘Well, don’t.’

Shocked, I put the phone back on its dashboard holder.

We walked in silence towards the hospital. What should have been a really special time had been ruined. But then we both stared in wonder at the screen. ‘There’s the head,’ said the radiologist. ‘See?’

‘Our baby,’ breathed David. ‘It’s like magic.’ Then he kissed me, properly, right in front of the woman. ‘I love you so much.’

Our previous argument was forgotten. As if it had never existed.

We had two scan pictures done. ‘I need one as well,’ he said, tucking it into his pocket and patting it. Then he put an arm around me as we headed back to the car. ‘We’re going to be the perfect family. Our child will want for nothing. I’m so proud of you, love. You do know that, don’t you?’

By then, I was beginning to show. Not much. Just a little rounded bump. But that was enough.

Staff started to nudge each other. The inmates appraised me keenly. ‘So she’s not a lezzie after all,’ I heard one say.

‘Doesn’t mean anything. Could have been a turkey baster.’

‘But she got married.’

‘So she says.’

Meanwhile, morale wasn’t good in the prison. Nights were getting darker. Christmas was coming up. The heating kept cutting out. There was also trouble with the women on the laundry rota. One prisoner had found a large lump of faeces in her ‘clean’ sheets. No one would admit responsibility, so I put them all on loss of privileges, which meant not being allowed phone calls or the twice-weekly gym sessions. That hadn’t gone down well.

Then a young mum in the MBU tried to escape with her twelve-month-old when they were taken to the hospital for routine immunizations. Normally these were done in the prison, but the little boy hadn’t been well enough to have the jabs along with the others.

‘Didn’t get far,’ the prison officer had reported.

I instructed that the woman should be punished by restricted visits, which meant she couldn’t see her other son, who was being brought up by grandparents. I felt terrible – yet an example had to be made, or else everyone else would do the same. I was starting to feel like I was trapped. How long could I go on doing this for?

‘Bitch,’ spat Zelda when she passed me in the corridor. So I ordered that her visiting privileges should be cut like the other woman I’d just punished. I knew this would make her resentment worse but I had to lay down the law. Zelda Darling was a troublemaker. If anything, no matter how small, went wrong, she was always first amongst the prisoners to summon in the IMB – the Independent Monitoring Board. In a way, I couldn’t help thinking Dad would have admired her. In another life she’d have made a great union official. But Zelda seemed to have it in for me personally.

If only I’d known how deep her resentment went.





44



Helen


‘Are you sure you haven’t seen David?’ asks Perdita again, just before lunchtime.

‘Why?’

I speak in a sharp, defensive manner, but inside I feel nervous. Is it possible that she knows something is going on between us? Perhaps someone had heard us in the office.