‘My guilty pleasure,’ she said. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it, to be poring over recipes when I’m stuck in here?’
‘Doesn’t it make things worse?’
‘I fantasise about the meals I’m going to cook when I get out. What are you reading?’
Tabitha held up her book. ‘It’s about Iceland.’
‘The same thing.’
‘I guess it is.’
To imagine whales and glaciers and wild spaces in a poky cell; Tabitha looked down at the book, sick with longing for an open sky and the salty wind in her face.
‘Why are you here?’
The woman put her head on one side. She had a curious smile on her face. ‘You mean, what did I do?’
‘Yes.’
The woman looked suddenly reflective. ‘It was stupid, really. I worked for a company that got caught up in a financial mess, and I didn’t see what was happening until it was too late. They needed a scapegoat and I was in the right place, or the wrong place. That’s my story anyway. Everyone here has a bad-luck story and everyone says they didn’t do it.’
‘I see,’ said Tabitha.
‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’
‘It’s all a mistake,’ Tabitha said. ‘I think my solicitor will sort things out soon.’
‘What’s your name? I’m Ingrid, by the way.’
‘Tabitha.’
‘All right, Tabitha, I’m going to give you some advice. I wish someone had given it to me when I first arrived. Rule number one: never ask anyone what they’re in for.’
‘Oh. Sorry! I didn’t mean… I mean I didn’t know…’ And she’d asked Michaela as well, she thought, remembering the way her cell mate’s face had closed on her.
‘I don’t mind, but lots of people do. Rule number two: if you have a problem, if you think something’s unfair, if someone’s got it in for you, don’t go to the warder.’
‘Who do I go to then?’
‘You don’t. Rule number three: the prison governor is a dreadful woman. Don’t rely on her for anything and don’t get on her bad side.’
‘These rules aren’t making me feel better about things.’
‘Rule number four: if you’re in trouble for some reason, think of what it was like in the playground.’ Tabitha grimaced. Michaela had said the same thing, and she’d had a brutal time of it in the playground. ‘You don’t get people to like you by being weak.’
She seemed to have finished.
‘Is that it?’
‘It’s advice more than a rule. Keep active. Oh, and the food here is terrible. Go veggie.’
‘I am anyway. Is the vegetarian good?’
‘It’s not good but it’s a bit less bad.’ She leaned across the table. ‘You just have to keep going, Tabitha. You’ll be all right.’
SIX
Half an hour in the exercise yard, a dingy rectangle of concrete and wired fences, and the wind was hard and cold. Tabitha didn’t have gloves and her coat was inadequate. But she was outside at least, and there was a sky above her.
Women stood in huddles, most of them with cigarettes. She didn’t try and join any of them. She tilted her face up to watch the clouds shift and took in gulps of air, like someone who had been drowning.
* * *
In the central hall, she came across the thin old woman with arthritic hands she had seen on her first day, on her way to the showers. She was saying in a loud voice, to everyone and no one, ‘I think I’ve found it. This will show them! Look.’ She fumbled through her thick bundle of papers. ‘Look here.’
Half the pages slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. She knelt to retrieve them and then had difficulty in getting up again. People were laughing, both prisoners and warders. Tabitha went forward to help her, but one of the warders – the puffy one who had ended her call with Shona – got there first, putting his hands under her armpits and lifting her to her feet like an over-sized rag doll. He grinned across at Tabitha and screwed a fat forefinger at his temple.
She thought of giving his shin a good, hard kick but instead she smiled at the old woman and turned away.
* * *
‘Michaela,’ she said in the darkness.
There was a grunt from the bed above her, then: ‘What?’
‘I’m sorry I asked you what you’d done. I didn’t know I shouldn’t.’
No reply.
‘It’s quieter tonight.’
‘That’s because everyone’s fucking asleep except you. And now me.’
‘Sorry.’
She stared into the thick darkness while Michaela moved restlessly above her and then fell silent again. She heard her breathing. She heard herself breathing. This was her fourth night; in twenty-six days, she would go to court and her case would be thrown out. Four nights out of thirty, two-fifteenths, in percentage terms, that was 13.333 recurring. Tomorrow, Shona would come with clothes and books and pen and paper. She could do this, she could get through it. It would become like a bad dream, the kind that made her lurch awake at night with sweat on her forehead. But just a dream. It wouldn’t be true anymore.
Yet still, it was so cold and so dark, and in the darkness thoughts and memories came like an ill wind blowing through her, so that her heart hammered and her breath felt shallow and hard to find. She could suffocate in herself.
She thought about how the doctor had asked her about her moods, the drugs she took, the time she had spent in hospital. She hadn’t wanted to talk to him about it, or to the solicitor, because talking made it seem so decisive and clear-cut, whereas to Tabitha being depressed was like being in a swamp. A colourless, featureless swamp with no horizon, no sunlight, no way out.
That day, the one that had led to this cell that tonight felt like a coffin, she had been in the swamp. She barely remembered it, just the immense effort of hauling herself out of bed, her body as heavy and useless as a sack of wet earth; of trudging to the shop; of making herself go for a swim because that was her pledge. And now she was here and she couldn’t swim in the sea or chop wood or walk in the cold rain. She knew she mustn’t let herself be pulled back into the dreary horror of herself, but she was hanging on by her fingertips.
SEVEN
‘They took everything away.’
Shona was slightly out of breath. She sat down opposite Tabitha but her eyes were darting this way and that, taking everything in with an expression that was both nervous and excited. She had put on a blue satin shirt and large earrings, her bobbed chestnut hair shone under the sour lighting. Tabitha could smell her perfume. She looked fresh and pretty and out of place. Faced with her, Tabitha felt small, shabby, plain and grimy. She couldn’t remember when she had last washed her hair, and it hadn’t been cut for months. However thoroughly she brushed her teeth, the inside of her mouth felt furry. There was a cold sore on the edge of her lips: she needed fresh air, crisp apples, green salad, nourishing vegetable soup.
‘They’ll need to go through them all. Did you manage to get everything?’
Shona nodded. Her earrings swung. ‘I think so.’