Page 19 of The Stranger in Room Six

Belinda

Mabel and I have been sharing stories for three days. But then she asks me the question I’ve been dreading most. The question that conjures up my very worst memories.

‘Tell me,’ Mabel asks, her eyes gleaming with curiosity, ‘what were your first days like in jail?’

That’s not difficult. I remember as if I was there yesterday.

Prison, I learn, is full of people who insist they shouldn’t be there, like the angry woman who’d been banging on the partition next to mine on the drive here.

‘I’m innocent!’ she protests, as we’re shoved into a communal cubicle and ordered to change into oversized coarse navy tracksuits. ‘They said I stole money from my company, but I didn’t! What are they accusing you of?’

‘Manslaughter,’ I mumble.

The woman moves away. ‘You’re kidding me.’

‘I pushed my husband by accident,’ I add hastily. ‘He fell and died.’

A fearful look comes into her eyes, as if I might try to do the same to her.

‘I’m not sharing with her,’ my reluctant companion protests to the guard when we find ourselves being taken to the same small cell. ‘That woman’s a killer. She’ll hurt me.’

‘I won’t,’ I say swiftly. I want to add that I am normal. That until a few days ago, I’d been a wife who was making the most of a marriage that wasn’t satisfactory but not, with hindsight, totally unsatisfactory either.

Instead, I crawl into my bunk, put the scratchy grey blanket over my head, fold my arms and rock from side to side, black fears and terrors coursing through my mind. Nothing is ever going to be the same after what I’ve done. Never.

Gerald is dead. One of my daughters hates me.

I try to make sense of things as I lie there, blocking out women’s shouts from the cells around me. When did it all start to go so wrong for Gerald and me? When he started the affair, did he return from work as usual? How could he, after something as huge as that?

Now I look back, I can see the signs, such as when he’d sleep in the spare room so he could ‘get some rest’ for work. Was that just an excuse to ring Karen? To tell her how much he was missing her? These thoughts drill into my mind; my whole life cast in a different light.

Somehow, I must have drifted off because I wake suddenly to an electronic click as our cell door opens. Women are outside, jostling in the corridor.

‘What’s going on?’ asks my cellmate.

A guard comes marching up. ‘Join the bathroom queue, ladies, or you’ll miss the boat. There’ll be a bell for breakfast soon and if you’re late, you’ll get a strike.’

‘You’ll hit us?’ Quickly, I step back.

‘Not that kind of strike. A black mark. Three and you lose visiting privileges.’

Everyone else seems to have a sponge bag. ‘Didn’t your lawyer tell you to bring toiletries to prison before your hearing?’ the guard asks.

I shake my head.

‘You can order one, but it will take time. Now get a move on.’

The lukewarm shower water dribbles. Thoughts whirl round my head. How are the girls going to manage at home? Will the law allow them to live on their own?

My lawyer said he’d send me paperwork so that I could give the girls access to the joint account that Gerald set up for ‘housekeeping’. Of course, we left everything to each other in our separate wills. But can a murderer’s wife inherit from her victim?

I feel too sick to eat but force myself to swallow a piece of cold toast. A woman with a shaved head and flame tattoos down both sides of her neck sits opposite, watching my every move. ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

I nod.

‘What are you in for?’

‘They say I killed my husband.’

This woman doesn’t seem shocked like my cellmate.

‘And did you?’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Hah! Sure, you didn’t. My name’s Chris, by the way. Let me get you a cup of tea.’

Gratefully, I cup my hands around the chipped mug. My hands are still cold from the shower. I take a sip. The warmth is comforting. When I finish, Chris and the other women roll around, laughing.

‘Liked your tampon tea, did you?’ one sniggers.

Have I heard her right? ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s Chris’s present. She does it to all the new girls. She carries a used tampon in her pocket and dips it in before giving it to you.’

They’ve got to be joking, haven’t they?

‘Did you do the same to me?’ whispers my cellmate.

They grin and both of us retch.

‘And don’t think about telling the guards,’ Chris hisses. ‘There are more of us than you and, trust me, this is nothing compared to some of the things we can do. You’ll see.’