My mum had always told me she wished she had known her last conversation with dad would be the final time she would ever speak to him. She’d told me there was so much she wished she had said. But there I was, knowing I had maybe just spoken to my wife for the last time and still thinking of things I wanted to tell her.
It had almost become something of a routine now, trying to drift off to sleep with teleshopping in the background.
It was the same lady on again. Very prim and very proper, but clearly not loving her job as she walked around the overly saturated set with a dead-eyed look. I imagine the viewing figures for teleshopping weren’t exactly high.
She presented a product, the price and number flashing on screen. The easy trim, at-home haircut set. If I called the number now, they’d throw in a free comb as well.
I shuffled around on the sofa, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get comfortable, so I got to my feet and yanked out the cushions to flip them over. That was when I saw a gold sparkle shoot into the air and land with a small clink right on the carpet. Mep hopped over to sniff it, but I quickly reacheddown and snatched it up before he could swallow it. I certainly didn’t want to deal with the opposite problem Mep was currently having. It was an earring: Fran’s. I gripped it tightly to my chest, exhaled deeply, and then settled back down on the sofa. God, I missed her, I missed her so much. I missed her bringing me risotto at work, I missed the boring bread-and-butter sex, I missed the stupid arguments, and most of all, I missed talking to her. I missed everything about her. I knew she loved me too, but I still just didn’t understand why she’d done what she had.
I stretched my arm out to feel Mep, but couldn’t find him there.
‘Mep?’ I called, propping myself up on my elbow and squinting through the dark to make him out. I could just about see his slim silhouette below me, his glowing eyes glinting. I watched him slowly gobble the leftovers of my microwaved mac and cheese I had abandoned by the sofa. I leaned forward, carefully, cautious not to make any kind of noise or movement that could throw him off as he chomped on each bite. To my astonishment, he didn’t puke it straight up over the carpet. I listened closely to every single audible gulp he made.
‘Good boy,’ I whispered, leaning back into my indented spot on the sofa. I continued watching the telemarketing lady on TV, attempting to sell the easy trim, but any good insomniac could tell that she wasn’t having it tonight. Maybe she’d had a rough day with the kids. There was so little zing behind her tonight, deep crow’s feet stretched from her eyes as she snatched up the easy trim and held it upward. She seemed almost lost for words in the majesty of something so…cheap.
‘Look, level me with here,’ the lady said with a half-groan. ‘You know sometimes, when you have really stupid ideas, and you know they’re stupid. You know they’re foolish, and you know that you’re probably going to regret it and that it’s probably not a good move,’ she said to the camera, clearly inresponse to her producer begging her to try something, anything through her earpiece. ‘But something within you compels you to just do it anyway. To act.’
She paused.
‘That’s what the easy trim is, so don’t waste time in picking one up today.’
TWENTY-ONE
FRAN
Surprisingly, I’d been given my own room or prison cell or whatever exactly I was meant to call it. Something about remanded prison rule seven, saying that I didn’t have to share with another prisoner until I was officially found guilty. But it was harder to keep up the façade that this was all part of my budget weekend away when there were literal thick cast iron bars now outside my window.
I had a desk, a small flatscreen TV, and some surprisingly nice patterned curtains to cover up the avant-garde design of exposed metal. The cell even featured a lime green accent wall to contrast the dull beige I had in my custodial suite.
Although, I had to admit, I not only felt like the new girl at school – but also the new girl that had her arm in a cast, so couldn’t do PE. I didn’t need to go to inmate education or work, and the guards didn’t treat me with quite the same animosity as the others. They mostly just left me to do my own thing between roll calls. One of them even asked me about the book I was reading, and we engaged in some light small talk, although he was no Paul.
I got to meet some new people, which was nice; a different type of people from my usual neighbourhood, though I felt like Iwas doing a good job of the head-down-low thing. I had made no nemeses yet, no one trying to shiv me during recreation, which I was taking as a good sign. A lot of the stereotypes I’d had about prison were already eroding away.
But while I was projecting the whole unfazed, strong-but-silent type around the rest of the inmates, truth be told, I was terrified. Not ofthem, of course. Sure, there were probably some other killers in here too, but I bet I could win against them in a one-on-one fistfight easily; I had killed scarier people than them, even if some of them looked pretty damn scary. What I was truly petrified of was that the rest of my life could be like this. To the rest of the inmates, remanded custody seemed to carry something of a stigma, like I was a baby-faced infant about to have my bliss shattered at any moment. Word was, a lot of those on remand just pleaded guilty to get some control of their lives back, and not live in constant anxiety. A bunch of inmates in the lunch queue had casually told me to get used to my new home for the next few years.
I had made a friend, though, Lucy. She had killed her sister over a row about inheritance, but had told me in good faith that her sister was a bit of a bitch, so I was going to take her word for it. I tried to stay on the good side of the guards, so they could put me with Lucy as a roommate if I was found guilty and had to be stuck here until my teeth started falling out.
‘I hear you had your lawyer coming in today?’ Lucy asked me at lunch, as she dipped her bread into the mayo. An interesting cuisine choice.
‘Yeah, to bring some clothes and to brief me before it all kicks off tomorrow.’
‘Oh yeah, when is your trial again?’
‘Tomorrow,’ I repeated, hoping I wouldn’t make Lucy feel stupid.
‘Awhhh, that’ll be nice,’ said Lucy, as if we were talking about a cream tea at a country estate. She took a big bite of her bread before returning it to dip into the mayo. ‘It will be good to get out for a bit and get some fresh air, I guess. How come you never have any visitors?’ she asked, dropping her bread with a thud against the plastic tray and crossing her arms. ‘You don’t get anybody. You haven’t got a boyfriend or a husband or a girlfriend?’
‘Oh, I have a husband,’ I said, before reconsidering. ‘I have a husband technically, but for complicated reasons, he’s a lot of the reason I’m in here.’
‘Ohh, I see,’ Lucy said, tapping her nose. ‘Pimp?’
‘What?! No, he’s a police officer.’
‘Oh, that makes more sense. He arrested you?’
‘No, but he helped.’
Ooh, that hurt more than I thought it would, to say it aloud.
