Blood Sisters(86)

‘Breathe, Kitty. Breathe.’

That was Friday Mum’s voice. Breathe? How could she when she felt as if she was being pulled down under the water all over again. The pain was lashing at her like waves. Her body seemed to have taken on a mind of its own. What was this creature inside doing to her?

‘I need to go back into court,’ she yelled. ‘I need to tell them something.’

‘Calm down, Kitty. It will be all right. Another breath. That’s it. Good girl.’

But what? What was it that she needed to say?

Plaits.

Sunshine.

A funny smell.

A secret.

A locket.

A summer house.

Something else. More important.



Think, Kitty tells herself. THINK!





64


September 2017


Alison


I’m allowed a short time with Robin and my barrister downstairs before they take me away.

‘Where’s Mum?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know.’ Lily takes my hand. It strikes me that she is a different kind of barrister from the type I had imagined. (Not that I’ve much experience.) This woman is kind. Compassionate. More like a friend. ‘Listen. I know this might seem like the end of the world right now, but we will appeal.’

‘No,’ I say sharply. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘That’s quite common,’ she says. ‘Some people have just had enough of the system by now and that’s understandable. But you were pushed, Alison. Mentally speaking. Don’t you see that? There were mitigating circumstances. An appeal court might reduce your sentence.’

I suddenly realize that I didn’t take in the sentencing that followed my verdict. ‘How long did they give me?’

Robin’s eyes are red. ‘Ten years. I’d hoped that the length of time since the accident might reduce the sentence but there are some crimes like manslaughter which are punished severely no matter how long ago they happened.’

Ten years? I have a startling memory of helping my little sister to do her tables. Two fives. She was very quick like that.

‘It could well be reduced for good behaviour,’ he adds.

If not, by the time they let me out, I will be into my forties. With any luck, I won’t get that far. And if I do, well, that’s my punishment. I’ve had enough of life outside. I deserve every second behind bars.

There’s a knock on the door. ‘Time,’ says a voice on the other side.

I am being taken to a holding prison.

How often have I seen the prison van arriving at HMP Archville with more prisoners to deposit? It has slit windows like narrow eyes. Yet now I can see it’s different from the inside. Like a sealed box. I sit on the edge of my seat, with my wrists in handcuffs on the other. There is no one else here apart from an officer. It feels surreal.

I am being housed here temporarily until the authorities decide where to send me. Robin thinks I will probably go to a Cat C. Worse than the one I was working in. He told me this in a voice that suggested he had failed me.

My old student Kurt had once drawn a series of cartoons about the complicated process of arriving at jail. He’d called it ‘Checking in’. I recall this now as they take me out of the van; my eyes blinking in the bright summer sunlight. But nothing could have really prepared me for this panic-plunge in my stomach as I take in the walls around me, topped with rolls of barbed wire. They’re so high that my neck cricks.

I am marched towards the entrance. There’s the sound of a key on the other side. A gruff bulldog of a man in uniform stares unflinchingly at me. I stare back. It doesn’t do to show you’re scared. Yet at the same time, one needs to behave with a certain respect. I know that much from my old life in prison. The one where I was on the other side.

The interior is more modern than the grimy exterior suggests. I am taken into a side room, where a woman officer gets me to sign a form. I don’t even bother reading it. Then she holds out a plastic bag. ‘Personal possessions in here.’

Reluctantly, I hand over my sister’s locket.

I am strip-searched. Every crevice is examined. I am then handed a too-big pair of navy blue jogging bottoms and sweatshirt.

‘Shoe size?’

‘Six and a half.’

‘This isn’t Russell & Bromley. Six or seven?’

I plump for seven. My feet are lost in them. But my ten-year sentence is too long for tight shoes.

Robin wants to appeal. But I won’t allow it.

I am taken to my cell. It’s not that different from the one I spent the night in as artist in residence instead of inmate. Narrow. Spartan. Except that it has bunk beds. The occupant of the lower one is lying chest down. She raises her head briefly as I come in.

‘What are you in for?’ she sniffs.

Maybe this question is allowed in women’s prisons. ‘Manslaughter, amongst other things,’ I say.

She makes a face. ‘Not good.’

Then she crawls under the blanket. And I sit and wait to see what is going to happen next.





65


September 2017


Kitty


It felt like The Monster was trying to push its way out of her body. Couldn’t it see there wasn’t enough room?