I manage a smile.
‘That’s more like it,’ she says, smiling herself, although Cathy’s smiles are always veneer thin. ‘Don will put you on the happy pills if you stay in bed.’
I sit up, my head still drumming. I laugh, but it hurts. ‘It would make his life easier.’ And I think it would. I sense that my therapist doesn’t particularly like me, and I can see how perhaps a Rose numbed and dumbed with antidepressants might be a good scenario for him.
Cathy’s smile is now long gone. She pushes me gently and I move over so she can lie next to me. This cosiness is alien to her, and I wonder again what it is about me that draws her. Most days I don’t like the answer.
But despite what Cathy actually is – the bigger part of her – I like the part of her that she shows only to me, or the part only I can see.
It’s ironic that I’m so discerning in prison.
‘It’s your husband you should be talking to,’ she says, now under the cover. The bed’s much too small for two.
The hammering inside my head has now turned into an undulating thrum.
My kind and dedicated husband. The man who both saved and condemned me.
An hour after Cathy returns to her own cell, the hatch in my door is opened. ‘Rose. It’s visiting time,’ a custody officer says through the small hole.
I look at the calendar. It’s not my husband’s visit day, but then I remember. I agreed to a visit from my mother. Her request was a surprise; I have not seen her for more than twenty years.
‘Did you hear me, Rose?’ he’s saying. ‘Your mother. Marion Trahern.’
‘Okay.’ I get up as he unlocks the door and follow him through the newly painted corridor, keeping one step behind as he leads me to the visits hall, and to my mother.
There are around twenty tables in the huge room, and she’s managed to sit at exactly the same one as my husband does on his visits. She’s peering into a compact mirror and doesn’t see me until I’m only a few metres away. When she looks up, I see the ravages of time, undoubtedly mirroring what she identifies in my features. Without wanting to do so, I acknowledge how physically alike we are. Why is she here? Maybe my husband has asked her to come. No, he wouldn’t do that.
‘Hello, Rose,’ she says.
For a moment I think she’s going to shake my hand, and this brings a wry smile. It’s been that long. The fifth of July 1992. The date is hard-wired into my memory. I’d gone to visit her, a spontaneous decision, and encouraged to do so because I was planning to get married. Despite everything, I wanted to tell her myself. A stranger answered her front door, and it took a few phone calls to find out she’d moved. When I finally found her and my brother at their new address, I stood outside for at least ten minutes trying to work out how she could afford a house in a nice part of West Bridgford. The visit didn’t go well; we argued, but about what exactly, I don’t know now. I was still raw, and she was still adamant that everything was my fault. My impromptu visit had all the ingredients for the disaster it was.
My head thumps. I pull out a chair and sit down. ‘This is a surprise.’ Immediately I begin to pull at the skin around my thumbnail.
She tries not to watch my hands. ‘Don’t be like that, Rose.’
‘You look well.’
She doesn’t return the compliment. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been before.’
‘You didn’t even come to my hearing.’ I grip my hands together, attempting to calm myself.
She reaches towards me. I don’t move, or respond.
‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ she says.
I’m about to touch her, to try and make peace, because I cannot stand the constant conflict of everything. But then she says, ‘You were always a bit unstable, Rose. You should have allowed your barrister to plead insanity.’
My hand reverts to its resting place on my knee, my quest for peace obliterated. ‘Me unstable? That’s a bit rich coming from you.’
Her eyes flick around the room. ‘Always defensive. Always with a temper.’
‘Of course I’m defensive. I haven’t seen you for over twenty years.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ She says this with her eyes fixed on the visit room’s back wall.
‘You carried on working for him.’
‘It was a job. I needed the job.’
‘You could have found a cleaning job anywhere.’ I study her coat, which she’s hung on the side of the chair. Jaeger. When did my mother begin buying coats from there? Probably the same time she moved house.
‘What is this, Rose? I feel as if I’m on trial. And I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘Haven’t you?’
She moves her chair back; her coat falls to the floor. She doesn’t get up. ‘It was you who cut ties with me, and your brother.’
‘I haven’t heard from him either since this happened… since before this happened.’
‘Since you took the life of an innocent man, you mean?’ Now she does stand. ‘You were not sane when you did what you did.’ She puts on her coat. ‘I knew coming here wouldn’t work. I’ll come another day when you’ve calmed down.’ She pauses. ‘I’m sorry, Rose.’
‘For what? For not helping me that night? For not being there for me when I needed you the most?’
‘You blame everyone but yourself.’ She takes a breath. ‘You killed a man, and I don’t understand why.’
I don’t reply. There is no point. I watch her walk hurriedly towards the exit, then look down. My left thumbnail is streaming with blood.
4
24 March 2016
I’m sitting at my small desk, pushed up against the side wall of my cell, Bella Bliss’s letter laid out in front of me. It’s a
