“What’s the point of that?” said Tabitha. She was crackling with rage and it felt good. “Stop bullying her and fuck off,” she added.
The woman pushed her harder. Tabitha pushed back, hard, and then she was immediately lost in a whirlwind of blows and punches. She pulled herself free and swung her right fist, her left fist. She didn’t know if she was making contact. There were shouts and screams and she felt herself held from behind and a blow against her face that felt like an explosion of white and orange and red. She kept trying to wriggle free and was forced down onto the linoleum and even then, when she couldn’t use her arms she managed to flap her legs. Gradually it all subsided. Her face was forced down and she was held down and saw the boots of a warden beside her face. Her mouth felt full and she spat on the floor and saw that it was blood.
Standing in the prison governor’s room, Tabitha felt like she wasn’t in a prison anymore. It was more like the headmistress’s office. There were paintings on the wall of a deer and one of a moonlit lake. There was an embroidered rug, a leather chair. On the desk was a nameplate: Deborah Cole MBE. Sitting at the desk was Deborah Cole herself, a woman in her late forties, her hair neatly styled with blond streaks. Tabitha could only see her top half: gray jacket, white shirt with a brooch at the throat. Her face was made up with a surgical precision, as if she were about to appear on television.
Tabitha had been led into the office by two female wardens, who stood on either side of her. Cole looked up from a file she was reading. Tabitha assumed it was hers.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Tabitha. “It was a bit of a blur.”
Cole barely reacted. She just tightened her lips. “Orla Donnelly,” she said. “Jasmine Cash. Were they the girls you were fighting with?”
Girls. Tabitha almost found the word funny, as if this had been a little bundle on the hockey field.
“I’m new here. I don’t know people’s names.”
“Could you identify them?”
Tabitha knew that she should just say no but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Are you saying that I should inform on other prisoners and then what? You’ll protect me? Keep me safe?”
“We keep everyone safe.”
“Yeah, right, OK. But as I say, it was a bit of a blur.” She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her mouth. It was red. “And now I’ve got to go. There’s a visitor here to see me.”
Cole shook her head. “You’ve been in a fight. No visitor.”
“I’m not a prisoner. I’m on remand. I’ve got the right to be visited.”
Cole’s expression became almost contemptuous. “Visits are a privilege, not a right. You can have visits when you deserve them.”
“How the fuck can I prepare for the trial if I can’t have visits?”
“You should have thought about that before.” She looked down at the file. “Less than a fortnight and already causing trouble. We’ll need to keep an eye on you.”
“You’ll regret this,” said Tabitha.
Very slowly Cole closed the file. “Maybe things haven’t been explained to you properly, Miss Hardy. I run a zero-tolerance environment here. Zero tolerance for drugs. Zero tolerance for violence. And zero tolerance for disruptive behavior. This is a house of correction.” She looked at one of the wardens. “Take her away. Full search.”
“What do you mean, full search? Search for what?”
Cole was already looking down at her desk and Mary Guy and the stringy woman seized an arm each and pulled her out of the office. In the anteroom she saw the tattooed woman and the shaved woman, each with a warden, seated.
They dragged her along the corridor and into a room, completely empty with gray walls, no pictures, a window high up. All Tabitha could see through it was the blankness of a gray sky. They let her go and she stood between them in the middle of the room.
“You know this is crap, right?” she said, panting with anger rather than the effort.
“Wait,” said Mary Guy.
“For what?”
Neither of them answered. After a few awkward minutes, the door opened and two more female wardens came in. They were dressed in the same uniform but were clearly younger, much younger. They were like schoolgirls. The two of them stood to one side, right by the wall. Mary Guy turned to them.
“Watch,” she said. “This is what we do.” Then she turned to Tabitha. “Take everything off and put it in a pile.”
“This is crap,” said Tabitha. “I was just on my way from my cell. You’ve got no right to do this.”
“We can make you do it. And I promise you won’t like that.”
“I’m not a convicted prisoner. I’m just on remand. You can’t do this.”
“It’s going to be done, one way or another. If necessary, I’ll send for more people and they won’t all be women.”
Tabitha tried to make her mind go blank. She pulled her sweater and her tee shirt together over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She kicked off her shoes. She pulled off her trousers.
“Everything,” said the stringy warden.
She pulled down her knickers and added them to the pile.
“I said, everything.”
Tabitha looked down. “You mean my socks? Oh for fuck’s sake.”
She teetered on her left foot and pulled off her right sock, then teetered on her right foot and pulled off her left sock. She tossed them on the floor.
“You should shave more,” said Mary Guy. There was a snickering sound from behind Tabitha.
“Fuck you,” said Tabitha.
“I’ll remember you said that.”
She walked forward until she was almost touching Tabitha. Then she walked behind her.
“Squat,” she said.
“I know what you’re doing,” said Tabitha. “You’re not looking for anything. You’re just doing this as some kind of punishment.”
“Squat.”
“No.”
“Would you like a week in solitary?”
Tabitha thought of her visitor. Of her visitors. The visitors she desperately needed.
She squatted.
“Lower.”
She forced herself down. Her back
