Page 59 of The Stranger in Room Six
Part Three
37
Mabel
The following day, Mabel suggests they go to the library to talk. It’s a much brighter and airier room than it had been in her day. It gives her great pleasure to think how the flowery curtains, which have replaced the tapestried drapes, would have horrified her aunt.
The other residents are all downstairs, listening to ‘Celine Dion’, as Mabel likes to think of Claudette. The sound of a love song floats up through the house.
‘When did you last have sex?’ Mabel asks suddenly.
Belinda gives a start. ‘That’s a very personal question.’
‘Well, we’ve been talking about personal things. I’m curious, that’s all. I haven’t had sex since Churchill was prime minister. But I do recall feeling it was very special.’
‘So you were a teenager?’
‘Not necessarily. Churchill came back in the fifties, remember. Your turn now.’
Belinda flushes. ‘About fifteen years ago, I suppose.’
‘So you didn’t sleep with Imran after he came back into your life?’ Mabel laughs. ‘Got you, didn’t I? Now I know some of your story in advance. You probably think that old ladies like me don’t talk about sex. But we do. Some of us, thank God, are still in possession of our minds too. I’ve got Scotch and cod liver oil to thank!’
At that, Belinda manages a laugh, despite her embarrassment. ‘If we’re going to jump ahead,’ she says, ‘please tell me if the Colonel was hanged or not.’
‘No – it’s your turn! You were acting all tough in prison; you’d even got Jac moved! What happened next?’
38
Belinda
Time in prison goes much slower than you think. In films, they show men carving dates into their cell walls one minute, then getting out the next. But it’s not like that in reality.
Instead, you have to make a pact with yourself. You have to stop counting the days. You must stop marking the months in your mind, and think in years instead. So far, I’ve done three. They feel like a lifetime.
Even when those years are up, you need to convince a parole board that you’ve reformed enough to be released. If theyaren’tconvinced, you serve another year. And maybe another. And another.
When you do get out, the world will not be as you know it, although that’s another story. The point is that if you allow yourself to tick off every day inside, you will go stark raving crazy. If you’re not crazy already.
I know this because Mouse has told me. She speaks a lot of sense, my cellmate. But I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.
In the meantime, I’m working very hard at pretending to be scary myself. The odd thing is that the longer it goes on for, the more I begin to feel that I reallyamfrightening and not just play-acting.
Meanwhile, we’re coming up to Christmas. It’s one of the few landmark dates that Mouse says I’m allowed toacknowledge, as I mentally count down the years to release. It would be hard not to. Staff are on leave; festive decorations are allowed, but no tinsel, which could be used for strangulation. There are more visitors in the already overcrowded hall. Everyone is upset and emotional because they want to be with their families, even if they hated each other before coming in here; in some cases even murdered them. Add menstrual and pre-menopausal and post-menopausal symptoms to the cauldron and you get the picture.
‘You’re different, Mum,’ says Elspeth when she pays her monthly visit.
‘Really?’ I ask, knowing she’s right. I’m doing my best to be brittle and uncaring, at least on the outside.
‘You seem to have accepted you’re here.’
‘I have to, darling,’ I say.
Seeing Elspeth is such a relief. We talk about her university studies and which career Gillian might choose and whether life is all right with Uncle Derek.
I somehow manage to ask these things despite the jealousy raging inside my heart. A jealousy mixed with fury because Gerald’s affair and my own stupid actions mean that someone else is bringing up my children.
‘I don’t like to think of you being alone here for Christmas, Mum,’ she says to me.
