What Have I Done

Seven years ago



Marlham prison was never, ever silent. If it wasn’t the droning TV with its endless cycle of mind-numbing soap operas, then it was the screams of derangement, shrieks of laughter and shouted expletives which apparently could not be delivered without the volume turned right up. Kate, as she was now known, knew from experience that the vilest prose was far more menacing when spoken quietly, slowly and in close proximity, forcing you to really listen and absorb the meaning. Shouting was for amateurs.

There was no peace even at night, when the cells were haunted by the inescapably noisy sobbing of the young and uninitiated. Kate found it heartbreaking. She could not stop herself superimposing the image of her daughter, Lydia, onto their weeping faces and she longed to make them feel better with a hug and a kind word. Their howls were punctuated by the bangs of desperate, angry hands as shoes and hairbrushes hit metal bars and bed frames, tapping out a rhythm that was Morse code for ‘Get me out of here, I want to go home. Please let me go home.’

In the wee hours, unsympathetic warders and tired inmates barked instructions to ‘Quieten down, shut up and turn out the bloody light!’ When the inmates finally fell silent and the warders had taken refuge in their office, the building itself came alive. The Victorian plumbing creaked and groaned, radiators cracked and popped, light bulbs fizzed in their sockets and wind whistled through the gaps between pane and frame.

For Kate, the relentless noise was one of the biggest challenges of prison life, something she had not anticipated. She had steeled herself for the loss of freedom and the tedium, but it was the small things that had the biggest, most unexpected impact. Kate’s yearnings and frustrations grew from the tiniest of privations. Having to squeeze her toes into over-dried, stiffened socks was a daily sufferance. But not being able to make herself a cup of tea dampened her spirits to the point of depression. The cool, milky brew that she was served three times a day was the exact opposite of how she liked it and even after three years she still hadn’t got used to it. Not that she ever longed to be back in the head’s kitchen at Mountbriers – not once, never.



When she first arrived, it was quite exhausting learning the timetable, rules and lingo of the strange environment. Most of her education came from watching the other inmates and imitating their responses to bell rings and indecipherable shouts.

She noticed that new residents fell into two categories: those who raged against the system that had unjustly removed them from a life they loved, taking any opportunity to holler, protest or lash out; and those, like herself, who conducted themselves with a level of serenity that suggested prison might in fact be a refuge from whatever had harmed them on the outside.

In the early weeks of her incarceration, Kate had to remind herself of where she was and why she was there. It was just as someone had once suggested to her: a kind of madness, temporary or otherwise. She had become single, widow and killer in a matter of hours. She was separated from her children and Mark was dead.

The kids were with her sister in Hallton, North Yorkshire. At various times of the day and night, Kate would have sudden panics about their welfare. Had she ever told Francesca that Dominic was allergic to cashew nuts? Supposing she inadvertently fed him some, did he have his EpiPen? Fear of the potentially fatal consequences pawed at her for days; she could think of nothing else. A logical mind would have reassured Kate that her son was a teenager and perfectly able to remind his aunt about his allergy, but this was not a logical mind; this was the mind of someone trying to cope with the enormity of being separated from her children.

When sleep was slow to arrive, Kate would ask herself some pertinent questions. Do you regret it? Do you ever think that maybe it would have been better to have kept quiet, to have kept your hand out of the apron, left the knife in your pocket? Wouldn’t it have been better for everybody, Kate, to have continued living your life the way you always had? At least you got to see the kids every day. At these times she would open one of her sister’s letters and devour her words.

Francesca always started with ‘Hey, Katie’, which turned back the clock to a time when they were young and close, a time before Mark Brooker had left his bruise on the sweet young girl who had very little to worry her. It was, however, more than a time-travelling term of endearment; it was also an acknowledgement that that was the last time the girl who married Mark Brooker had acted of her own free will and not as a frightened puppet. ‘Hey, Katie’ was for Francesca a term of forgiveness now that she was finally able to understand what had lain behind her sister’s cold and stilted behaviour over the years. It was a way of saying, ‘all is forgiven, slate cleaned, onwards and upwards’.

Kate read and reread the snippets of information about her children, thankful beyond expression that her sister had, at Kate’s time of direst need, simply scooped them up and taken them to safety, just as she had known she would. Equally gripping were the dropped hints of ordinary life carrying on regardless – ‘Must dash, shepherd’s pie in the oven!’ – enabling Kate to picture the family around the table, chatting and eating her sister’s signature dish. And then there were the bigger details: Lydia having ‘been accepted at art college to take her foundation course’ and Dominic ‘helping Luke and his dad design the interior of a new business venture he is working on, a boutique hotel, no less! He’s coming up with some great ideas and slowly, slowly the business is finding its feet again, thank goodness.’

Having reread Francesca’s latest news, Kate could answer her own questions without hesitation. No, it would not have been better to have kept quiet, to have left the knife in her pocket. Mark would have killed her eventually, of that she was certain.

It had taken almost three years inside before Kate realised that her confidence and self-esteem were slowly returning. During her marriage she had barely registered their absence, but now she was beginning to feel that she was actually worth something, that she had something valuable to say. She could at last say ‘no’ without feeling guilty – could say no to anything, in fact, be it an invitation to tea, or an aggressive sexual demand. She finally understood that to say no was her right.

Kate knew, however, that she would always carry her experiences in every fibre of her body; she would drag the person she used to be inside her like a waterlogged sponge. Given the choice, she would have preferred a spike of emotion, an obvious grief that after a brief and explosive hysteria would have left her cleansed. But that was not how she operated. Instead, she hauled along a low-level misery that, while suppressed, would shape the rest of her life. This she accepted with a certain resignation. The fear of Mark had gone. In its place lurked a ghost that might appear over her shoulder in the bathroom mirror or creep under the duvet to spoon against her in the dark of night. These momentary jolts, these shiver-inducing memories were entirely preferable to the abject terror in which she used to live.

The loss of contact with her children sat on Kate’s chest like a dead weight. The pain of their absence was instant and sharp; it made breathing difficult and eating nearly impossible. Memories stalked her dreams and she regularly woke in tears, bereft at the recollection of the dimple in Lydia’s toddler finger, Dom’s blue woollen mitten discarded on the icy garden path. The deep, gnawing hunger she felt for them distracted her from everything she tried to do. It was debilitating and ever present, insistently there during every chore at every second of every day. Yet, like someone thirsting for water in the desert, she wasn’t able to fix the problem. Words of apology and explanation hovered on her tongue, but with neither child listening, it felt hopeless, and the frustration drove her frequently to tears. Hard as she tried, her jailers couldn’t or wouldn’t understand that it wasn’t prison per se that bothered her, it was that she needed time alone with her children, just an hour or two in which she could explain to them, comfort them. Could someone not force them to visit her? Please…

An image of her feeding them as newborns, each baby tiny, perfect and adored, sat behind her eyelids, never more than a blink away. She pictured their minute fingers splayed against her stretched, white skin, where tiny blue veins meandered towards their seeking, rosebud mouths; she watched their eyelids fall slowly in long, lazy blinks, tummies full, ready to doze. Her gut would contract with the familiar feeling of yearning, not unlike when she was feeding. If she could only go back to that time and find the courage…



The steady slap of flip-flops on the linoleum floor told Kate it was time for the post. The slovenly girl whose job it was to deliver the mail slowed her cart as she approached and flicked through a stack of manila envelopes. Kate could always sense when a letter was heading her way. She smiled as she pictured her sister scribbling at her little desk in between mouthfuls of coffee and the wiping down of counter tops. Lovely Francesca.

The post-girl flung an envelope through the open door and onto Kate’s bed. Having never received one herself, the girl had little idea of how much joy and distraction a letter could bring.

‘Thank you.’ Kate was sincere.

The girl gave the briefest of nods. She wasn’t in it for the thanks; it was all about the few pence she received for her troubles.

Like a connoisseur savouring a fine wine or a good cheese, Kate had learned not to rush the process. She always delayed the opening, holding the envelope, scrutinising the seal and feeling the weight before examining the spidery script of the address. She discreetly put her thumb over her prison number written in black ink in the top left-hand corner; she ignored the thin strip of glue that had already been lifted so that the contents could be scanned and the word ‘AUTHORISED’ stamped in red ink across the flap. For a second or two, she could dismiss the thought that a prison official had already devoured gossip intended only for her and pretend she was somewhere else, receiving news and enjoying the connection with the rest of the world.

Kate turned the innocuous brown rectangle over in her palm until it lay flat against her hand. Her heart jumped. It wasn’t the meandering script of her sister’s fountain pen that stared back at her, but the unmistakable tiny, precise strokes of her daughter’s hand.

‘Oh! It’s from my daughter!’

Kate didn’t know who she was shouting to, her words were almost involuntary. The joy bubbled from her throat.

‘Good for you, love,’ came the indifferent reply from a neighbouring cell.

It was only the second letter she had received from Lydia in three years. Kate had all but worn out the thin sheet of its predecessor. This precious new talisman would provide her with hours of reflection. Each word would very quickly be committed to memory, but the text and its meaning were not enough. To hold the piece of paper and trace the words that her little girl’s fingers had rested on connected her in a way that recall alone could not. To inhale the paper which revealed the vaguest hint of her daughter’s fragrance, transferred from the lightest touch to her wrist, was an indescribable pleasure. Kate read and reread the two pages at least twenty times that day. Other readings on future days would become part of her routine.

Gosh, Mum,

Nearly three years, it’s gone so quickly. Francesca’s still completely bonkers, but brilliant and reminds me a lot of you. I can see some of your traits in her and vice versa. I guess I’d never spent enough time with her before to notice. She has the same voice as you and when I first came here, if I heard her on the phone or she’d call me down to dinner, I’d get really upset. But I’m used to it now and sometimes I make out it is you downstairs cooking my tea and it makes me smile.

Kate stopped reading to mop at the tears that fogged her vision. She pictured the countless times she’d called up the stairs, ‘Supper’s ready, kids!’, to hear them thundering down either laughing or arguing. How she missed dishing up their meals, hearing their moans, watching as they tucked into their food, spilt drinks on the tablecloth and scraped their shoes against the wooden floor.

College is amazing! Learning loads and when they set me new assignments I think, oh goody! Whereas a lot of my friends just get pissed off with the workload. I think this means I love it more than them. They say I’m quite good, particularly my painting, which makes me happy!

I know I haven’t written for a long time. I start a lot of letters, but I don’t finish them. Hope I finish this one. If I don’t, then I’ll try again in a while. I find it hard, Mum, I really do. I don’t know how to write to you, if that makes any sense.

‘I know, darling, I know it’s hard, but don’t stop, Lydi. It means the world to me.’

Kate was unaware she had spoken out loud.

‘You got visitors in there, girl?’ her neighbour shrieked across the corridor.

Kate ignored her; she was talking directly to her daughter.

It’s taken me this long to realise that what happened really happened and wasn’t just a bad dream. That’s how it all felt for a long time. I’ve been seeing a kind of counsellor in York and it’s helped. (Didn’t think it would, but it has. Dom won’t go, but I think he should.) It’s helped me understand that Dad was my dad no matter what he did or didn’t do. I miss and mourn him because he was my dad and before this all happened he was a great dad. I was proud that he was the Head. It made me feel special at school. I can only remember being really happy when I was with him, never anything else. I also mourn you too, Mum. You were my ‘background noise’ – always there and always doing something, and now my world feels silent because I’ve lost you. I have lost you both.

‘No you haven’t, darling. I’m right here!’

Kate’s voice was a strained whisper, her vocal chords taut with distress.

Dom and I talk about it sometimes, not all the time as you might expect, but sometimes. It’s like we have a secret and when we discuss it we do it in a whisper. If we can work it out with dates and stuff, we will try and come down to see you at half-term.

I miss you and I love you as ever,

Lyds xx

Kate held the paper against her chest and hugged the words to her breast. She knew Lydia was right: your dad was your dad no matter what he did or didn’t do and she would never try to influence her beautiful kids one way or another. She had protected them their whole lives and she would continue to do so.

One sentence burned brighter than any other: ‘we will try and come down to see you at half-term’. The very idea of seeing the kids made her feel giddy. Her stomach muscles clenched with anticipation. She was allowed two sixty-minute visits every four weeks. She had only ever had two, one from a court-appointed chaplain and one last year from Francesca, who had travelled the length of the country to sit for an hour in the strained confines of the visiting room. Kate had assured her that her time would be better spent in Hallton, making things as comfortable as possible for Dom and Lydi. The hour had passed in minutes and the two had grasped each other’s hands awkwardly and whispered inadequate goodbyes through their tears. It had been horrible.



Four weeks passed, then six, then eight. Kate stopped counting. They weren’t coming.

Kate now accepted that the more time passed, the less likely they were to visit. It was as if the cavern they would have to cross grew wider and more treacherous with each passing day. The only visitor she could rely upon was her best friend, Natasha, whose first trip to Marlham was one that she would never forget. It had been some weeks into her sentence, when she was alerted by the particular squeak of the guard’s rubber soles.

‘You’ve got a visitor, Kate.’

‘What?’

She had heard perfectly, but was so stunned by the words, she wanted them repeated for confirmation. The warder pushed open her cell door. Kate was momentarily confused. It was so rare for her to have a visitor she had forgotten the drill. She felt a split-second flicker of dismay that her reading was about to be disrupted; Paulo Coelho would just have to wait. Her heart beat loudly in her chest, her mouth went dry.

Lydia, Dominic, or both: who had finally decided to come? Oh please let it be both, she prayed. Her hands shook inside her smock pocket. She teased her fringe with her fingertips as she paced the corridor, impervious to the fact that the state of her hair would be the least of her children’s worries.

The visiting room was functional and austere, smaller than she had imagined. Square tables and plastic chairs like the ones in the Mountbriers school hall sat uniformly in three rows of four. Security cameras blinked from every corner. The linoleum floor had been polished to a high shine. God help anyone in socks, thought Kate as she peered through the safety glass at the top of the door.

The visitors were already in situ, with some of her fellow inmates seated opposite them. It was fascinating for Kate to see the women she lived with interacting with their families and friends. A brassy, blonde scrapper called Moll was crying as she squinted at a photograph. Not such a tough nut after all.

Jojo, a neighbour of Kate’s, was wearing a vest, her wasted addict’s muscles on full display. She was slouched in a chair across from a woman who was unmistakably her mother, decked out in pearls and wearing a flashy watch. The older woman sat with lips pursed, eyes darting continually to the clock on the wall, disapproval and disappointment dripping from every pore.

Kate scanned the rest of the tables. Where are you, where are you?

Her eyes lighted on a familiar face. It was Natasha, the art teacher at Mountbriers and Kate’s one and only friend. She smiled widely to hide her disappointment. Not her children, not today.

Natasha sat cleaning and admiring her nails, before twisting the beads on her chunky bangle to best show off their pattern. She surveyed the decor as though she were rendezvousing in Costa Coffee on a sunny day rather than visiting her jailbird friend. Natasha looked as if she had stepped from a pavement cafe in St Tropez. Her skin held the burnish of a recent tan. Silver and diamante clips attempted to hold her unruly hair at bay, which she had grown to shoulder length. Her vest sat snugly over her slender, bra-less form and a multi-coloured patchwork skirt pooled in a fan around her chair. Kate knew it would not have occurred to her friend to opt for demure or depressed.

Kate took the seat opposite Natasha and worried momentarily how they would start. But Natasha hardly blinked, as though it had been a few minutes and not many months since they had last seen each other.

‘Okay, so I once stole a bottle of Panda Pop when I was twelve, but was too scared to repeat the exercise, so I gave up thievery there and then. Every time there was an early-evening knock at the door I thought it was the police coming to get me! I used to hide, sweating under the duvet until my dad sent them away.’

Kate shook her head, trying to pick up the thread.

‘It was more of a dare and not my thing at all. Oh, and I also sneaked a look at your notebook once, when you left it on the kitchen table at Mountbriers. I read a list of chores, all quite standard, and saw a picture of a flower that you had scrawled, which wasn’t very good, your perspective was all wrong. I remember thinking, God, I hope this is a bloody code for something deviant and exciting – no one’s life can be this boring! And finally, drum roll please, I did have a teeny tiny crush on Cattermole, the school chaplain. I think I saw myself in some Thornbirdsesque illicit love affair, with the poor chap caught between his devotion to the church and his lust for me.’

Natasha raised one of her elegantly arched eyebrows and flashed Kate a wicked grin.

‘So, there we have it, Kate, my confession to you; things I didn’t share but probably should have, knowing that you wouldn’t have judged me and that you’d have loved and helped me no matter what. Now it’s your turn!’

Kate laughed until the tears gathered.

‘Oh, Tash, I never told anyone. I couldn’t.’

‘I’m teasing you, honey. We’ve got all the time in the world.’

‘I guess we do. I hated pretending to you, to everyone, but especially you. I reached a point where I just couldn’t do it any more.’

‘Do you know what, mate? I knew something wasn’t right. He was a pig of a man in a number of ways, but I had no idea of the extent of your suffering. I guessed at a bit of bullying, but when I heard the full detail…’ Natasha paused to compose herself. ‘I think you are a remarkable woman, Kate. Stronger than anyone I know, to have shouldered what you did just to keep it secret from the kids. I admire you greatly.’

‘I didn’t feel like a strong person, quite the opposite, even now.’

‘Well you should. Most people would not have been able to function, let alone put on that brave face and make things “normal” for everyone else. You are amazing.’

Kate smiled, unused to discussing her feelings in this way, let alone taking a compliment.

‘How are you doing now?’ Natasha looked concerned.

‘I’m…’ How was she? It was hard to phrase.

‘I’m okay. I like the peace I have in here, I can read. But obviously I miss… I’ve had a couple of letters from Lyd, but I haven’t heard from Dom. She said they might… I thought they might…’ Kate’s eyes stung, her nose ran, and her mouth twisted into the ugly angle of one in distress.

‘I’ve seen them.’

Her friend’s words cut and soothed in equal measure.

‘Oh! Oh, Tash!’

She had so many questions that bubbled on top of the jealous bile that rose in her throat. They are my kids, my kids! How come you’ve seen them and not me?

‘They are alternately angry and confused, as you would expect, but they are doing great. Lydia is expressing her thoughts through her art and is very centred, determined; she has your strength. Dominic is more of a loose cannon, but then he always was.’

Both women thought briefly of their time at Mountbriers.

‘It will not always be this way, Kate, and your sister is doing a great job. She keeps you present every day in little ways – the odd comment, and an easy patter about your childhood, that sort of thing.’

This was good to hear. ‘Thank you.’

Her words slid between mucus-smeared lips. Her heart ached with longing. My babies, my children…

* * *

Kate fixed her smile and entered the classroom. Eighteen months into her sentence and with a record of model behaviour, she had been asked to run an English Literature class for her fellow inmates. Incarcerated English graduates who were willing to teach were thin on the ground.

Her fellow convicts were a varied bunch, but largely came from backgrounds that were quite alien to Kate. Over eighty per cent were addicts, jailed for crimes they’d committed to feed their habits. These women often wanted to tell her their stories. They ranged in age from eighteen to sixty, but their tales were remarkably similar. All spoke of the vice-like grip of addiction that meant scoring the next hit took precedence over every aspect of their lives. They would sell anything, including themselves, and stop at nothing to get their hands on their drug of choice. Most had been in and out of prison so many times they may as well have fitted a revolving door with heroin or crack on one side and their cell on the other. Prison seemed to give them the respite they needed, enabling them to think clearly and make promises they knew they would be unlikely to keep.

Kate felt especially sad for the younger women, most of whom seemed to have been dealt a losing hand. She felt certain that with a little more direction and a lot more kindness, they could have been heading off to study art or design hotels like her own children, rather than watching mind-numbing TV for twelve hours a day and sneering at their lookalikes from the other side of the room.

The first time Kate taught a class, she felt an overwhelming sense of achievement. It wasn’t quite the environment she had envisaged when she qualified twenty-odd years ago, but nevertheless, she was now a teacher, she was finally a somebody. Her class had grown in popularity and was now at full capacity. She entered the room with gusto.

‘Right, girls, Hamlet beckons! If you would like to turn to where we left off last week, where Ophelia is very sadly starting to lose her marbles, we can crack on!’

The assembled ‘girls’ all had a thirst for learning and escape, needs that Kate understood only too well.

‘What do we think of Ophelia? Do we think she is mad? Or is there something else going on here?’

‘I think she’s mad, yeah – to put up with all Hamlet’s shit!’

This succinct summing-up caused a ripple of laughter around the room.

Kate laughed too; there were no right or wrong answers in here, only sound opinion.

‘I like that, Kelly. You are right, of course. Ophelia seems to be at the mercy of all the male figures in her life; she’s a victim. Hamlet himself uses her to wreak revenge. I think she suffers because of how the men in the play view women; even her father and brother rule her life. Do we think it’s the guilt she feels at Hamlet’s supposed madness and her father’s murder that sends her insane?’

Kate paused and looked around the room, her palms upturned, inviting interaction.

Jojo sat forward. ‘I can’t believe that even in the olden days, like Hamlet time, women were still treated like dirt. It’s like nothing has changed in hundreds of years.’ She shook her head.

Kelly was not going to accept this. ‘Speak for yourself, Jojo. I’ve never put up with shit from a bloke. It’s weak, man. If a bloke treated me badly, I’d leave, every time. Ophelia should have done a runner.’

Kate was used to this, the meandering from the text in hand to real life and back again. She could never have envisaged such rich and current debate. It was wonderful.

‘Every time, Kelly?’ she prompted. ‘What if there are circumstances that stop her leaving, other factors?’

‘Like what? There’s nothing that would make me stay with some f*cking shit-head bastard, nothing.’

‘Okay, let’s try and cut the language a bit – although Shakespeare was a big lover of cussing! I guess we are talking about two different things. Ophelia was trapped both by the time in which she lived and by her circumstances and you are saying that in today’s world you wouldn’t have to put up with that level of oppression, is that right?’

‘Yep.’ Kelly nodded. That was exactly what she was saying.

‘What I’m asking you to think about, Kelly, is what if you had reasons to stay, whether others thought those reasons were valid or not. They could be self-imposed reasons, like guilt or duty. Or practical reasons: nowhere else to go, poverty, no roof over your head…’

The girls stared at her. Kate realised that many if not all of them had themselves faced poverty and homelessness; these aspects of life were accepted, to be expected, even. The bar was set so low. She decided to change tack.

‘What if you had kids; what if you needed to stay to take care of them?’ She pictured Lydia and Dominic at seven and eight, tucking them into bed, kissing their foreheads, switching on their night lights.

‘You’d have to be some sort of moron to have kids with a bloke that’s no good in the first place!’ Kelly wasn’t done.

Jojo piped up, looking directly at Kelly. ‘I had kids with someone like that. Trouble was he was all right at first, suckered me right in, but he turned out to be a really bad man, class A shit, a liar, total bastard.’ Jojo instinctively wrapped her arms around her torso, administering a self-soothing hug.

Kate smiled at Jojo. They had more in common than the girl could ever have guessed. She thought she might have found a kindred spirit.

‘Did you stay because of the kids?’

‘No, I stayed because of the drugs. My kids were in care within a year of him moving in. I don’t see them no more.’

Jojo spewed out her words with bravado. But Kate saw the flash behind her pupils and the flush in her cheeks at the mention of her children. She had noticed the way Jojo unconsciously and momentarily cupped the left breast that had fed those children. It told her she would have loved to have been a good mum had circumstances been a little kinder.

Kate looked at the book in front of her: ‘Frailty, thy name is woman…’

She sat in the chair at the front of the class, aware that all eyes were upon her. It broke her heart, the very idea, the waste. Kate felt a sense of futility; what would teaching these girls about Shakespeare achieve? Would it bring back Jojo’s kids, help Kelly reach stability? Of course not. Was it more about her stupid, self-indulgent desire to teach?

Kate was aware she had to do something. She swallowed hard and closed the text. Her voice was soft.

‘Sometimes it’s easy to judge others in the cold light of day or to say how you would react in a certain situation, but I think the one thing we all have in common is that we know how hard it is to make the right decision when your mind is so scrambled with tiredness, fear or drugs. We judge Ophelia just like people will be judging us, all of us, and they will probably never know what it’s like to walk in our shoes. I know that I can’t even make a cup of tea without crying when I’m feeling a bit lost, when I’m that worn down, let alone make a good choice. I guess what I’m saying is that life is not always straightforward or easy, but I don’t have to tell you lot that.’

There was a faint ripple of laughter, but generally there was a hush as each considered the bad choices that had led them to that strip-lit classroom in Marlham’s women’s prison.

The scrape of metal chair legs against the floor made everyone turn their heads. Janeece had been sitting at the back of the class, listening intently and making copious notes as she always did. Kate had thrown her an olive branch when she had first arrived and Janeece, who had never known support of any kind, had grasped it with both hands.

She stood slowly, tugging at the hem of her grey T-shirt, trying to cover her ample stomach. Then she addressed the class, an act which took all her courage.

‘I think sometimes leaving is the easy choice. It takes courage not to bugger off. It must be harder to stay in a situation that is scary or horrible than to go. My mum left as soon as anything got tough. She kept leaving until one day she just went for good. I was six. Things were quite shitty when she was there, but they got a whole lot more shitty when she’d gone. It would have taken balls to stay and sort the mess out. Ophelia says, “we know what we are, but know not what we may be”. I think this means that we can all make good choices if we try and that we can be whatever we want to. It’s up to us.’

Kate beamed. If she had given Janeece the confidence to stand up in public and quote Shakespeare then maybe her role wasn’t so self-indulgent after all.

She and Janeece had come a long way since their first encounter. At the time, Kate had been just a month into her sentence. She was happy that her first weeks had passed without event. She had managed to keep to a routine of sorts and was sleeping all right despite the night-time noise levels.

She was sitting at the large table in the communal area on the ground floor as she did most afternoons. Most of the women were either clustered around the television, playing pool or knitting, but as usual she had her nose in a book. That day it was Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree. Her hair was still neat in its immaculate bob; years of cutting it herself to keep it tidy and pretty would certainly pay off in here. She felt a prod in her back and swung round to face an enormous, acned teenager of mixed race.

‘Yes, can I help you?’

The girl’s response was swift and hostile.

‘You is in my seat!’ she snarled through gritted teeth.

‘Oh, right, and who might you be?’

Kate had years of practice at hiding fear and remaining calm; she knew it best not to rise to any provocation. Her heart beat loudly against her ribs nonetheless. Was this going to be her first sticky moment? She smiled at the girl as though she were engaging a lost six-year-old she had found wandering alone in the local supermarket.

‘Janeece.’

‘Well, Janeece, it is very nice to meet you. I’m Kate.’

She held out her hand.

The girl reluctantly unfurled her own fingers and extended her palm. Kate shook it and Janeece quickly pulled away, not used to physical contact.

‘Firstly, Janeece, I think that this seat belongs to anyone that wants it, and secondly, you say, “you are in my seat” and not “you is in my seat”; do you hear the difference?’

Struck dumb, Janeece appraised the middle-aged woman who looked like a teacher and spoke like Mary Poppins. She nodded.

Kate continued. ‘I’m just about to start Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy. Have you read it?’

Janeece shook her head.

‘Nah. I don’t do readin’.’

‘Well, that is a great shame, Janeece. You are missing out on a million different worlds that you could visit, which when your own world consists of these grim walls, might be a good thing to do. Why is it that you don’t “do” reading?’

The girl stared at her and, without responding, bit her bottom lip, angry, embarrassed and ashamed. Her likely response floated into Kate’s mind as surely as if Janeece had spoken the words out loud: ‘Because I’m not very good at it. I don’t read because I can’t read very well, I don’t know all the words…’

‘Did your mother or your teacher never read you a book? My daughter used to love that.’

Janeece shook her head slightly, to indicate ‘no’ and also to banish the image of her mother, the slapping flat hand with the long nails that scratched, her voice like a machine gun in her head: ‘You are a fat, useless piece of shit; you are nothing and you will always be nothing, just like your shit of a father.’

‘Would you like me to read it to you?’

Kate showed her the cover.

‘Wha’?’

Janeece pulled her head back on her shoulders. Was this woman mad? Did she look like a baby that wanted story time?

‘I said, would you like me to read it to you? It’s a lovely story, I think you’ll like it! But, Janeece, be warned, once you fall in love with Hardy it can become a bit of an addiction. We would then have to progress to Far from, and Tess of course.’

Without speaking, Janeece sloped around the table and pulled out the chair opposite Kate’s.

‘How much of it are you goin’ to read?’

Maybe she would listen, just for a bit.

‘Oh, Janeece, I am going to read all of it, cover to cover, word for word; all of it! Not eighty or so words here and there, but all of it and then, if I like, I might go right back to the beginning and read it all over again!’

‘But you’d already know what ’appens!’

Janeece shook her head as though it was Kate that had misunderstood the concept of book reading.

‘Oh, I’ve already read it many times. But that’s the lovely thing about books; they are never the same twice. Every time I read this story I picture something different, learn something new, and the ending always takes me slightly by surprise. It’s like heading to a particular destination, but taking a different route each time you go. That way you see and feel new things each time you travel, and when you arrive, it’s always a bit of a mystery quite how you ended up there! So, Janeece, would you like to go on this journey with me?’

The girl considered this.

‘Awright. But most people in here don’ mix with me cos I’m dangerous.’

‘Well, I am not most people and I think we can all be a bit dangerous, when provoked. Now, are you sitting comfortably, as they say?’

‘What you in for?’

‘Janeece, are we going to start this book or not?’

‘Yeah, but I wanna know what you’s in for. I wanna know who I’m mixin’ wiv.’

‘I don’t know why it is important, but if you insist. I am here because I killed someone. I stabbed my husband with a very sharp knife and I watched him bleed to death. I just sat and watched until he gurgled his last breath. He tried to ask for help, tried to beg, but I didn’t listen to his pleas and I certainly wasn’t going to help him.’

Kate was trying to earn her stripes.

‘Why d’you do that?’

The girl was all ears. Bingo!

Kate leant across the table and whispered conspiratorially, ‘He wasn’t very nice to me, Janeece.’

Janeece had nothing more to say.

Kate began:

To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.



* * *

Remembering the day she introduced Janeece to reading always gave Kate a small swell of pride. Yes, she was in here, her skin slowly greying from the lack of fresh air and good veg, but that really didn’t matter in the great scheme of things. What mattered was each small difference she could make to someone else’s life.

Her cell door was ajar and Kate became aware of a presence in the doorway. Janeece’s Herculean form stood blocking the light, a piece of A4 paper clutched in her hand.

‘Is everything all right, dear?’

It was rare for the girl to come to Kate’s cell; the two usually met in the reading room or in class. Kate couldn’t accurately read her expression.

‘I did it, Kate! I bloody did it!’

Janeece’s tears clogged her nose and throat; she hadn’t cried in years. Her childhood had taught her that crying was futile, but this was different, these were tears of joy.

Kate jumped up, knowing instantly what she was talking about.

‘Oh, my love! Well? What did you get?’

The excitement bubbled from her.

‘I got an A star in English and an A in French and a B in Maths. I did it, Kate! I can’t believe it, but I bloody did it!’

Kate rushed forward and took the girl into her arms, cradling her bulk as best she could. She spoke into her scalp.

‘I am so proud of you, Janeece! I really am!’

‘I find it hard, but that won’t stop me. I’m going to be the very best that I can, even if it isn’t easy.’

‘Nothing worth having ever is, love, and when you leave here, Janeece, you have a very bright future. It’s like you said: if you try, you can be whatever you want to be. It’s up to you now. All the hours you have worked, it will all pay off. You have conquered the hardest part, believing in yourself! Look at how much you have changed, how far you have come. The rest should be a walk in the park and you won’t be alone. I’ll be there for you.’

‘It’s all because of you, Kate. You changed my life, an’ it’s all because of you. I had nothing and now I have something. I’m gonna go to university and I will be someone and it is all because of you.’

She whispered into her teacher’s shoulder, the words inaudible to anyone else, but Kate heard them, loud and clear.