“Skinny as a stick,” Carol said approvingly. “That’s what a hunger strike does for you. Weight Watchers should get onto that. Okay, up again.”
Jess raised her shirt. When Carol peeled the tape off, it hurt a little, but less than she was expecting: the slick of sweat on her skin had kept it from adhering tightly.
“And that’s all there is to it,” Carol told her. “Any questions?”
“No,” Jess said.
Carol gave her a smack across the head. Not too hard, but like a teacher disciplining an unsatisfactory pupil. “Have another think, eh?”
“What’s going to be in the package?” Jess asked.
Carol shook her head brusquely. “No. Keep going.”
“Wh-where do I pick it up from?”
“There you go. It’s going to be in the women’s toilets behind the courtroom – the one that’s just for guards and prisoners. You ask if you can take a piss. Do it right at the end of the day, just before they take you back to the van. In the toilet, go to the middle cubicle. If it’s being used, go into the next one and wait until the middle one’s free. You’ll find the package behind the cistern, taped to the back of it. You’ll have to stand on the seat and reach up from underneath. You won’t be able to see it, but you’ll feel a bit of tape holding it there. You peel the tape off and then just pull it down.”
“What’s in the package?”
“Then when you get back here, the first thing you do is come over to my cell, which is three-twenty, or Lizzie’s, which is four-fourteen, and hand it over. Me or Lizzie here, nobody else. If we’re not there, you wait until we are.”
“But what’s going to be in the—?”
The third time was the charm. Carol looked at Liz, arched an eyebrow and a second later the wall hit Jess hard in the back. Earnshaw’s left arm was pinning her in place and in Earnshaw’s right hand, an inch or so from Jess’s eye, was one of those stereotypical shanks. A wafer of razor blade tucked into the end of – in this case – a paintbrush handle sawn off just below where the metal neck that held the brush would once have gripped.
And behind the blade, Earnshaw’s belligerent face. Earnshaw’s twisted mouth, her bared teeth. “You stupid?” she demanded. They were the first words she’d spoken. Simple but eloquent.
“No,” Jess whispered.
The blade whisked back and forth. Pointed at her left eye, then her right. Earnshaw’s gaze went with it, left to right like a metronome. Big Carol sighed and looked at the ground. The expression on her face said, This is out of my hands now. You went there.
The blade grazed Jess’s cheek just under her left eyelid. The hand that held it shook a little, but somehow the tremor didn’t pass itself along the slender shaft to the business end. There was no give or drift in that cold touch.
Something hot filled Jess’s body and then drained away again, from the crown of her head down to her stomach.
“Hey,” Big Carol said at last. “Lizzie.” Her tone was almost gentle.
“Fucking behave,” Earnshaw growled, still glaring right into Jess’s eyes.
Her hand dropped to her side and a second later there was no sign of the shank at all. She stepped back. Jess’s legs, suddenly taking her full weight again, buckled under her and she slid down the wall, halfway to collapsing. Her eyes flooded instantly with tears, as though they were trying to flush the wicked little blade away now that it was already gone.
“There isn’t much I can add to my learned colleague’s remarks,” Loomis said laconically. “You did get that, yes? About behaving?”
“Yes,” Jess muttered. She wanted to wipe away the tears but she was afraid to reach up and touch her eye in case she found a wound there. In case some of what was trickling down her face was blood.
“You’re fine,” Big Carol assured her, patting her on the head. “Don’t be crying. You’re a big girl now. You do as you’re told and nobody’s going to hurt you. Right, Lizzie?”
Earnshaw just stared at Jess with mute animosity. Her hatred was so vast and so sincere, Jess wondered what had stopped her from using the shank. It was as though she was a trained animal, set on by the other woman’s nod and checked again with a word.
“Oh Jesus,” Carol said now, looking down at the floor. Jess looked too. The puddle at her feet didn’t mean anything for a second. Then she realised what it was, and dismay and shame filled her.
“You’d better clean that up,” Carol told her, stepping back from the spreading pool. “And have a word with yourself. If you take a piss in the courtroom, no one’s going to believe you need to go again later, are they? Come on, Lizzie.”
The two women left, taking the dummy package with them. Jess closed the door with shaking hands and did what she could to clean up the puddle with paper towels. The towels filled the wastepaper basket before she’d finished. She took it along to the shower room and emptied it, grateful for once that nobody was going to step up and ask her what she was doing.
While she was there, she stripped off and showered. At that time of the day it was against the rules, but she didn’t care. Punitive withdrawal didn’t mean much to someone who was already living like a nun in a closed order. She rinsed off her tracksuit bottoms too and hung them over the cubicle door to air a little.
Alex appeared while she was drying herself and asked her what was wrong. Flustered, she turned away from him and wrapped the towel around her body. She knew by then that he didn’t really see the things that were in front of him. If anything, he seemed to see what other people saw, or what they thought about, as though their attention was a searchlight that guided his eyes. Still, she was ashamed right then to be naked in front of him. The emotions sloshing around her insides felt like nakedness enough.
“Go away, Alex,” she muttered. “Come back later.”
What’s the matter?
“Nothing.”
Yes, there is. You’re crying.
“I’m not crying.”
But you were just before. You’re thinking about it.
“I’ll think about something else.”
Did somebody hurt you? If somebody hurt you, I’ll hurt them back!
“No. They didn’t.” And that was the truth, more or less. They’d only threatened her. It had been a performance, even when Liz Earnshaw had put the knife to her face. A performance intended to make her obey.
The ghost boy’s presence calmed her. His willingness to be indignant on her behalf. She had to reassure him, and in doing that she reassured herself. “Nobody hurt me,” she said. “It was just an argument and it made me upset. I’m fine now.”
Are you?
“Yes. Look.” She gave him a smile that was halfway convincing. “Someone wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do, that was all. We got into an argument about it.”
Something bad?
“I suppose so. Yes. Something bad.”
You should tell them no.
“I will,” Jess assured him.
It was meant to be a lie, but once the words were out, they were suddenly the truth. Pastor Afanasy’s words came back to her.
You can’t make up for something bad you’ve done by killing yourself. You’ve got to try to do good things going forward.
45
Dr Salazar fell into his new routine. Self-hatred and despair were a big part of it, but they were invisible. On the surface, things were going fine.
Every Thursday morning, Carol Loomis would stroll into the infirmary and announce in a bored voice that she had a touch of the usual problem. Salazar would put the screens up so she could undress, and behind that cover she’d slip the regular package (picked up earlier in the week by one of Grace’s busy little bees) into the drawer underneath the medicine cabinet that was mainly used for dressings and sticking plasters.