Page 64 of The Stranger in Room Six
‘She’s dead?’ asks Mouse.
The governor stays silent.
‘You’re not allowed to say,’ Mouse says slowly. ‘But it’s clear as bloody daylight from your face.’
‘Oh God, that’s terrible,’ I say as the door closes behind her.
But Mouse is dancing round our cell.
‘Terrible?’ she repeats. ‘It’s bloody miraculous. Your girls are all right and that cow Linda has been punished. Don’t forget, she’s one of those bitches who made your life hell.’
‘I don’t care,’ I say quietly. ‘I don’t want anyone to have to go through the trauma of losing a child.’
‘Just count your bloody blessings that yours are safe. I’ve told you before, Belinda. You can’t afford to get soft in this place. Or they’ll kill you.’
41
The following morning, I am allowed to make a private call in the governor’s office. Elspeth’s voice is gentle, kind, reassuring. ‘It must have been a terrible shock for you, Mum.’
‘It was.’ I’m still shaking. ‘Is Gillian there?’
‘She is but she says she needs to study. Sorry, Mum.’
What would it take for my older daughter to change her mind? Perhaps if I was on a hospital bed or in the morgue? But by then it would be too late. Maybe I just have to accept that, although both my girls are still alive, one is determined to be dead to me. The pain is too excruciating to be put into words.
Meanwhile, Linda Wall has been given ‘compassionate leave’, which means she’s allowed to ‘rest’ in the San and is excused from her work duties. She is apparently in ‘a bloody awful state’ but, still, they won’t let her go home to be with her grieving husband and son.
More details filter through as the days go by. Her seventeen-year-old daughter was riding a stolen motorbike when the accident happened. She was in a race with her gang and went into a tree. I wince at every detail.
When Linda comes back to the wing, her eyes look as though they have seen things no one else has. She hunches over her meal. She stares into space. She avoids me. Does she know of the name confusion? If so, she makes no sign of it.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ I whisper, as I find myself leaving the canteen with her one day. She looks at me as though I am not there.
Then she walks on in silence.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ says Mouse. ‘I know you want to be kind, but you can’t – not if you’re going to survive in this place.’
A week later, I receive a form saying Derek wants to visit. Something important must have happened. Please may the girls be all right.
I take special care with my make-up.
Mouse, who’s been watching, lends me her mascara. ‘Fancy your brother-in-law, do you?’
‘Anything but.’
‘Then why are you going to all this trouble?’
‘To show I’m not like the others.’
She hoots with laughter. ‘Whatever you say, Belinda!’
Derek is sitting at one of the tables near the front of the visiting hall. He’s on the edge of his chair, visibly nervous. This is clearly his first time in a prison.
‘Are the girls all right?’
‘Fine,’ he says.
‘Are you sure? It was so frightening when they told me that one of them was hurt.’
