Page 140 of The Dead Ex

12 October 2018

Here again. This prison is different from the last. It’s modern. Warmer. I hand over my paperwork and place my right forefinger on the identification pad. An officer then takes me to one side, instructing me to hold out my arms so I can be frisked.

It’s all too familiar.

The process makes me feel as if I’ve done something wrong myself. Perhaps I have. I was there atTanya’s house. If I hadn’t worked for David, I wouldn’t have got pregnant. That would mean Mum wouldn’t have gone to the Goudmans’ house, and Tanya would still be alive.

I’m joining a queue now to get into the visiting room. There’s a small girl holding her mother’s hand. Instinctively, I want to reassure her and say it will be all right one day. But I can’t find the words. Besides, it mightnot be true. That little girl might end up like me.

Mum is already sitting at a plastic table; so are a dozen other prisoners. She looks wan. Frail. Her arms are stick thin. If physical contact wasn’t forbidden, I would put my own arms around her and hug her. Even though she’s killed someone, she’s still my mother.

‘Thank you for not telling them about me,’ I whisper, not wanting anyone elseto hear.

Mum’s eyes become fearful. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Of course she does. Yet her denial sounds so convincing. She is a natural liar.

‘You know, Mum,’ I say slowly, ‘I love you with all my heart. But there are times when I don’t know whether you’re telling the truth or not. We’re a team, remember? And teams need to work together. We can’t do that without total honesty.So is there anything else you’d like to tell me?’

There’s a flicker in Mum’s eyes indicating that I’ve struck a nerve. After all, look what happened last time I asked.

‘No,’ she says hesitantly.

‘You’re not saying that as though you mean it.’

Mum puts her head in her hands. I get a horrible sense of foreboding.

Then she lifts her head. Her face is raw with grief. ‘I thought someone mightbring it up at Vicki Goudman’s trial but they didn’t.’ She wipes her eyes.

‘Just tell me. Please.’

‘I couldn’t say before because you were too young, and after that, there didn’t seem a right time.’

I’m really scared now.

Mum sighs. ‘When they took me from you in the park that time, I was pregnant.’

What?

‘The dad was one of my friends.’

I think of the various ‘uncles’ who had flitted inand out of the house, giving me fruit-and-nut chocolate or rides on a motorbike.

‘Which one?’

‘It doesn’t matter. The thing is, he didn’t want anything to do with it.’ She sniffed. ‘Apart from you, the baby was the only thing that kept me going when I was inside. We lived in the prison mother-and-baby unit, but I was only allowed to keep her until she was eighteen months old.’

I hadn’t beenallowed to visit my mother after her sentence was extended because of her behaviour, but I do have a dim recollection of her wearing a baggy dress. At the time I hadn’t given it much thought. Now I realize she must have been pregnant.

‘Her?’ I repeat disbelievingly. ‘I have a sister?’

Mum’s eyes are wet. ‘The prison authorities made me have her adopted. I begged the panel – including Vicki Goudman– to see if she could be fostered instead. That way, I’d be able to keep in touch with her. But they said that with my record and behaviour, adoption was “in the best interest of the child”.’

She gives a little sob. ‘They wanted to have you adopted too, but because you’d been in the fostering system and were getting older, they allowed you to carry on. If youhadbeen adopted, you’d have beensomeone else’s child instead of mine.’

My mind is whirling. ‘Where is my sister now?’

‘That’s the thing, love. I’m not allowed to know. Nor are you. She’ll be about ten now. We can only hope that when she’s eighteen, she’ll try to find us.’