Page 61 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘Don’t you dare go anywhere near my Bradley,’ yells one of the girls who’s sitting with a gang on the far side of the room. ‘I know about you.’ She gets up and pulls the little boy towards her.
I glance down at him. He has glorious blond curls. Elspethhad curls when she was little; she still has a bit of a natural kink. Gillian’s hair had always been dead straight.
‘It can’t be easy for you both here in prison,’ I try.
‘Are you kidding? It’s better than being beaten up at home.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ I can’t help asking. ‘Did you fight back and get done for it?’
It was a common enough story inside.
Her mouth tightens. ‘I bloody should have. Nah, I was dumb enough be a drugs mule for the no-good father of my kid.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say.
The little boy has toddled off and returned with a battered-looking boardbook, which he brandishes in front of his mother’s face.
‘He wants you to read to him,’ I say.
The girl flushes.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t read.’
I hadn’t thought of that.
‘If I didn’t have to clean, I would read to him,’ I say.
‘No way.’ She puts her arms around her little boy. ‘I’m not letting my Bradley near a murderer.’
I can’t blame her. I’d feel the same myself.
The following day, Boxing Day, I’m instructed to report to MBU once more. The little boy toddles up to me again with the same book in his hand.
His mother comes striding across the room. ‘I told you to leave him alone.’
‘He approached me!’
The same thing happens on the third day, but on the fourth, when I come to clean, Bradley is lying in his mother’s lap, pale and listless.
‘He doesn’t look well,’ I say. ‘Have you asked to go to the San?’
‘The nurse ain’t here, is she? It’s her Christmas break.’
I don’t like the look of this. The child’s breathing is shallow. He’s pale. ‘Lift up his vest,’ I command.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Just lift it up.’
I can’t do it myself or I might be accused of fiddling.
It’s as I feared; there’s a rash. I rush down to the office to find a guard and bring him back with me.
‘This child needs to see someone.’
