‘Can they choose the colours they wear? Like that bright orange?’
‘It’s to show what wing they’re on. And don’t ask them questions like that or they’ll think you’re interested in them. Some of these men are dangerously smart. They’ll try to condition you if you’re not careful. Make friends with you to get you onside or make you less vigilant. The next thing, they’re getting information out of you without you realizing it, or making you do things you shouldn’t.’
That’s ridiculous! What kind of idiot would fall for something like that? We’ve stopped now. D Wing. Another set of double doors and gates. I step through as the officer closes both behind us. A wide gangway stretches out before us, with rooms on both sides. Three men are waiting, as if loitering on a street. They all stare. A fourth man is busy cleaning out a goldfish tank, his back to us. It strikes me as being incongruous – murderers looking after goldfish? – but before I can ask anything, I’m being taken into an office on the left.
Two young men are sitting at a desk. They don’t look very different from those in the corridor – short hair and inquisitive eyes – except they’re in uniform. I’m aware that my skirt band is cutting into my waist, and once again I wish I’d been more disciplined in Italy. Is comfort-eating normal on a honeymoon?
‘Legal for Mr Thomas,’ says my companion. She pronounces the ‘Mr’ with emphasis. It sounds sarcastic.
‘Sign here, please,’ says one of the officers. His eye travels from my briefcase to my chest and then back to my briefcase again. I notice that in front of us is a tabloid, sporting a scantily clad model. Then he glances at his watch. ‘You’re five minutes late.’
That’s not my fault, I want to say. Your security delayed me. But something tells me to hold my tongue. To save it for battles that matter.
‘Heard Thomas was making an appeal,’ says the other man. ‘Some people, they just don’t give up, do they?’
There’s a polite cough behind us. A tall, well-built, dark-haired man with a short neat beard is standing at the door of the office. He was one of those waiting in the corridor, I realize. But instead of staring, he is smiling thinly. His hand is extended. His handshake squeezes my knuckles. This is a practised salesman, I remind myself.
Yet he doesn’t look like an archetypal prisoner, or, at least, not the type I’d imagined. There are no obvious tattoos, unlike the prison officer beside me, who is sporting a red and blue dragon’s head on his arm. My new client is wearing an expensive-looking watch and polished brown brogues which stand out among the other men’s trainers and are at odds with his green prison uniform. I get the feeling that this is a man who is more used to a jacket and tie. Indeed, I can see now that there is a crisp white shirt collar peeping out from under the regulation sweatshirt. His hair is short but well cut, revealing a high forehead above a pair of dark eyebrows. His eyes suggest someone who is wary, hopeful and slightly nervous all at the same time. His voice, when it comes, is deep. Assured but with an accent that is neither rough nor polished. He could be a neighbour. Another solicitor. Or the manager of the local deli.
‘I’m Joe Thomas,’ he says, letting go of my hand. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Lily Macdonald,’ I reply. My boss had told me to use both names. (‘Although you need to keep a distance,’ he’d said, ‘you don’t want to appear superior. It’s a fine lawyer/client balance.’)
Meanwhile, the look on Joe Thomas’s face is quietly admiring. I flush again, although less from fear than embarrassment this time. On the few occasions I’ve received any kind of attention, I’ve never known how to respond. Especially now, when it’s so clearly inappropriate. I can never rid myself of that constant taunting voice in my head from schooldays. Fat Lily. Big-boned. Broad. All things considered, I still can’t believe I have a wedding ring on my finger. Suddenly, I have a vision of Ed in bed on honeymoon in Italy. Warm sun streaming in through creamy-white shutters. My new husband opening his mouth, about to say something, and then turning away from me …
‘Follow me,’ says one of the officers tightly, jerking me back to the present.
Together Joe Thomas and I walk down the corridor. Past the stares. Past the man cleaning out the goldfish tank with a care that might seem touching anywhere else. And towards a room marked ‘Visits’. It’s small. The barred window looks out on to a concrete yard. Everything inside is grey: the table; the metal chairs on either side; the walls. There’s just one exception: a poster with a rainbow and the word HOPE printed under it in big purple capital letters.
‘I’ll be outside the door,’ says the officer. ‘OK with you?’ Each word is fringed with a distaste that appears to be directed towards both of us.
‘Prison officers aren’t very keen on defence solicitors,’ my boss had warned me. ‘They think you’re poaching their game. You know. Trying to get them off the hook when it’s taken blood, sweat and tears on the police and crown prosecution’s part to get them banged up in the first place.’
When he put it like that, I could see his point.
Joe Thomas now looks at me questioningly. I steel myself to look back. I might be tall, but he’s taller. ‘Visits are usually in sight of but not necessarily in hearing of a prison officer,’ my boss had added. ‘Inmates tend to reveal more if there isn’t an officer actually in the room. Prisons vary. Some don’t give you the choice.’
But this one had.
No, it’s not OK, I want to say. Please stay here with me.
‘Fine, thank you.’ My voice belongs to someone else. Someone braver. Someone more experienced.
The officer looks as though he’s going to shrug, although he doesn’t actually do so. ‘Knock on the door when you’ve finished.’
Then he leaves us together.
Alone.
4
Carla
Time was dragging slowly. It felt like ages since she’d seen the golden-haired fat woman staring at her this morning, thought Carla. But already her stomach was rumbling with hunger. Surely it must be lunchtime soon?
She stared despondently at the classroom clock. The big hand was on the ten and the small hand on the twelve. Did that mean ten minutes past twelve? Or twelve minutes past ten? Or something completely different because, as Mamma always said, ‘in this country, nothing is the same’.
Carla’s eye travelled to the desks around her. Each one had a green caterpillar, bulging with pencils, felt-tip pens and fountain pens with real ink. How she hated her own cheap plastic case with a sticky zip and just a biro inside, because that’s all Mamma could afford.
No wonder no one wanted to be her friend.
‘Carla!’
The teacher’s voice made her jump.
‘Perhaps you can tell us!’ She pointed to the word on the board. ‘What do you think this means?’
P U N C T U A L? This wasn’t a word she’d come across before, even though she sat up every night in bed, reading the Children’s Dictionary. She was on the ‘C’s already.
C for cat.
C for cold.
C for cunning.
Underneath her pillow, Carla had carefully written down the meaning of each word and drawn a little picture next to it, to remind her what it meant.
Cat was easy. Cunning was more difficult.
‘Carla!’ Teacher’s voice was sharper now. ‘Are you daydreaming again?’
There was a ripple of laughter around her. Carla flushed. ‘She doesn’t know,’ chanted a boy behind her, whose hair was the colour of carrots. Then, a bit quieter, so the teacher wouldn’t hear, ‘Hairy Carla Spagoletti doesn’t know!’
The laughter grew louder.
‘Kevin,’ said the teacher, but not in the same sharp voice she’d used earlier on Carla. ‘What did you say?’
Then she swung back, her eyes boring into Carla in the second row. She’d chosen to sit there so she could learn. Yet it was always the ones at the back who made trouble and got away with it.
‘Spell it out, Carla. What does it begin with?’
‘P.’ She knew that much. Then a ‘U’. And then …
‘Come on, Carla.’