Quiet now. Only ragged sobs. Anna can’t hold her breath anymore, exhaling as quietly as possible. She’s desperate for sleep, to shut everything out. She feels herself caught in the current of this woman’s despair. It’s unbearable.
The woman keeps crying, quietly now. Not for long though – soon the sobs from the bunk below subside, and the pill begins to work its full magic for Anna, smoothing down the jagged edges.
Sleep.
3
Anna wakes with a start. Her heart’s pounding and she’s filled with a cold terror. She lies rigid, hands pressed into her sides, eyes tight shut. Petrified.
But there’s no one there. It’s quiet as the grave, the prison silent in the deep of night. She listens out, waiting to hear the smallest shuffle or sigh. Hardly daring to breathe, she opens her eyes a crack, looks from left to right, her head unmoving. No trace of life, the cell dark other than the silver gleam of moonshine leaking through the window.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even stirrings from the bunk below. It must have been another nightmare. Anna releases her breath, only a little, and shifts over on to her side. The dread is passing, some warmth returning to her hands.
But she’s not in her bed, she realises. The surface beneath her cheek is concrete. She’s on the floor. She must have climbed out of bed, the night terrors driving her into the unknown. She shouldn’t have taken the pill.
She opens her eyes fully, sees there’s enough light from the moon that she can get herself back into the top bunk without disturbing her pad mate. She slowly shuffles herself to her feet and climbs up.
Lying back down on her side in bed, the money in her bra digs in again. The night terror has lessened, thoughts of the day ahead taking its place. The bus, the train, the tube, the other train. Her final journey to the sea.
Anna closes her eyes, screwing up her face against all of it, everything, willing herself out of existence, waiting for sleep to come.
The next time she wakes, daylight is creeping through the cell from the window. The fear has eased its hold on Anna and she’s breathing easier now, the terror of the night before forgotten. She’s not dead yet.
The rays of sun are weak, sickly, but totally beautiful. She allows herself a moment to imagine them on her face for real, their warmth. When it happens, it won’t be in a bare enclosure, or a garden watched constantly by cameras and prison guards. She’ll be free to walk as far as she wants, to hold her hands up to the sky.
A flush of shame takes hold, scorching as it spreads from her gut, moving all over her. This is not her freedom. Hers is a life sentence. She shuts her eyes and turns away from the light. Back to where she was.
She’s thought it all through. Thought of nothing else for months. She promised herself one last attempt to contact her sister, to see if any forgiveness was possible. She knew it was futile, but one shred of hope that they might reconcile remained.
Hope died hard.Return to sender.That’s all she got back.
Everything’s gone. Family, friends, home. Her career. Nothing left to live for. No one cares.
It’s better to focus on the practicalities. The effects of the pill are gradually wearing off. It’s morning, time to get on with it. She’s got a mini box of cereal and a quarter pint of milk on the floor for breakfast. She’s not hungry, but she’ll have to force it down. She needs to keep her strength up, for just a little longer.
A scream in the background, a woman crying, incoherent shouting from somewhere down the wing. A buzzer rings and rings and rings. Morning is breaking. Anna doesn’t want to move. She wants to stay cocooned in her blanket, pinned here forever between dark and light, night and day.
But her bladder has other thoughts. She needs to pee.
Her pad mate is silent in the bunk below. Anna shifts herself over the side of the bunk and goes to the toilet at the end of the cell, sitting down with a sigh of relief. It’s still early. She can go back to bed, get a bit more rest, shore herself up against the day to come.
She rises to her feet and wipes herself, flushing because the smell is worse than the noise. Anna remembers the stranger’s conversation in the middle of the night; the whispered voice, the cry, the plea. Everyone here has something they’ve lost.
She goes to stand by the window, watching for the lifting of the light, then turns to get back into bed again. She bashes her knee on the edge climbing back up on to the bunk and lies back, swearing loudly. The impact wasn’t that hard but it stings, the skin broken, beads of blood breaking through. She wipes them off with the heel of her hand, swearing more loudly. The pain has broken any sense of calm she had – Anna’s filling up with panic, a stressed rage building up through her gut. She’s past caring if she disturbs anyone now. Gripped by an urge she can’t control, out of all proportion to the injury she’s suffered, Anna starts shouting at the top of her voice, an inchoate, wordless scream.
Nothing from the bunk below.
‘Fuck. Fuck’s sake.’
A bang on the pipes, thumps on the wall from the cell next door. Anna has woken someone up. Not her pad mate, though. Still nothing, still quiet.
Why the hell hasn’t the woman woken? Wincing at the sting in her knee, Anna jumps down again from her bunk and seizes the lower bunk’s blanket by its outside edge, pulling it straight off the bunk. She’s losing control now, a scream building up inside her, however unfair it is to disturb the woman like this. Anna needs a witness.
Nothing. No sound. No movement. No scream in reply telling Anna to fuck off. She bangs her head in frustration against the wall before kneeling on the ground to look inside the bunk.
4
The woman is face down in the dark corner of her bed, lying at an awkward angle, her feet dangling over the side.
