Tales of Sin & Fury, Part 1 (7 page)

‘You ain't missing nothing, mate,' says Mandy. ‘Get on with it, then. Take our minds off this crap we've got to eat.'

I try to remember where I was. I can still smell the prison food.

‘Good way to spend Easter,' says Mandy.

I pick up my thread. ‘Yeah. After all that I felt less like being a hermit.

‘The next day I decided to go back to the beach, but to avoid bumping into Lefteris I had to walk even further away from the village. You could walk so far that the houses were like specks. I kept going until I had left all signs of human life behind, sinking into the hot sand with every step, barefoot, following the long sweep of the sea.

‘I don't know why I kept going. It was almost as if I knew what I was going to find.

‘At a certain point I began to see a coloured spot on the sand ahead. It turned into two spots. I thought it was a mirage in the heat. When I got closer I made out two low orange tents. I was a bit nervous, but when I got right up I found there were two figures lying between them. They were stretched out in black swimming trunks. Like a vision. They had ash blond hair to their shoulders, and they were seriously sun-tanned. A few feet away there was a small campfire burning in a hollow in the sand lined with stones. At first I thought they were twins, but one of them was older than the other and his hair was thicker and a bit more reddish.'

‘Good looking?' asks Mandy.

‘Are you making this up?' asks Debs.

‘At the time I didn't believe it myself,' I tell them. ‘Since we were all in the middle of nowhere, I said “Hello” and they invited me to join them for a cup of tea. The driftwood was crackling. Over it they had a billy-can of water starting to steam. We chatted a bit. They were from Holland: Joris (that was the older one) and Sigurd. They had a little English, with a strong accent. When the water was nearly boiling they asked me if I wanted “thee” or “speciale thee”. It turned out that the “speciale” was hash tea and that suited me fine.'

‘You were doing that stuff even then?' Debs comes over to sit on the bottom of my bed.

‘A bit.'

‘I didn't know they had it then.'

‘I think they had that stuff before the ark,' I say. ‘How do you think the Old Testament prophets did their stuff? All those visions? They were probably as high as kites.'

‘Hold it, babes,' says Debs, and lurches towards the toilet again.

‘So if them old prophets were doing drugs,' says Mandy while we wait for her, ‘do you reckon they went through this n'all? They got stuff in the Bible about throwing up in the bog?'

‘I haven't read it that carefully,' I say. We look at each other and nearly giggle, if we didn't feel so ill.

After a bit Debs staggers back, pale-faced. ‘What did I miss?'

I carry on: ‘We drank the tea out of tin mugs, then they shared some bread and honey with me. Then they lay down. They shut their eyes and fell silent as if I wasn't there. Sunbathing seemed to absorb all their attention. They disappeared into the sand like chameleons and seemed to expect me to join them. Eventually I spread out my towel, took off my dress, and lay down too, in my bikini. The sun bored down on us all. I can't remember what we did that first day except lie there. I got out my book, but the words started to move around the page and I put it down. The hash made pictures in my brain. I let them come and go. I didn't want to think about anything. It was a kind of peace.

‘Later in the day they offered me a meal. I watched them prepare vegetable stew. Joris's hands were skilled and careful. Sigurd was more skittish, but he was swift and neat, and followed Joris's lead. They collaborated without speaking. They shared the food with me generously. “
Eet zoveel als je wilt
”. Sometimes I could understand what they said when I let the sounds wash over me. They never asked me anything about myself. Sometimes they smiled at each other. We ate in silence, then I went back to my room.

‘The next day I walked down the beach again, bought some tomatoes on the way to contribute, and again we had hash tea and lay and dreamed on the sand all day.'

‘Leave it out,' says Debs. ‘Going on about that when we're stuck in here.'

‘It wasn't all nice,' I tell her. ‘I kept getting stung by memories like sandflies. Memories I'd rather forget.'

When I shut my eyes I used to see Hayden. I saw his long sad face. The Dorset rain on the small cottage windows and his sad hard face and his thin figure hunched around a spliff in front of the wood fire.

And her. The real pearls round her neck and the fake smile on her face. And the faint glaze of disappointment in her perfectly mascara-ed eyes.

‘What memories?' asks Debs.

‘That man I told you about. Hayden. And my mother. She used to say, “I gave you every opportunity and you chose to throw your life away.”'

Suddenly I can't speak any more and I feel my eyes filling with tears. More humiliation. Get a grip.

‘So why did ya, then?' asks Mandy.

‘What?'

‘What she said. You was brought up to be a nice one, not a scrubber. What went wrong? Why d'ya chuck it all away?'

How to describe my mother? Life as an expensive recipe book. Controlled ingredients, mix carefully, glamorous presentation. All that ‘Goddess in the Kitchen' stuff. She loved the bright lights. Put on a good enough show and you can convince people things are OK. Except your own daughter. Shaming you in her scruffy clothes. Letting the holes in the façade show. Letting the air in.

I try to explain. ‘I felt suffocated in her cushioned world. Cosmetics and designer clothes and dinner parties and knowing the right people. How can you feel safe when the person protecting you is terrified? All you can do is face the terror and walk naked with it. I wanted to meet the wrong people. And I did.'

‘Bet ya still think you're better than us lot, though, init?' says Debs, pointing her long nose straight at me.

‘Do I act like that?' I ask her.

‘To be honest with ya,' Debs continues, ‘I'm not being funny, but you chose to chuck it all away. We never had nothing in the first place.'

She's right. I had choices. If I could have done what was expected of me: smiled at the right people, jumped the right hurdles… I have only myself to blame. Shooting myself in the foot again and again.

‘Don't take no notice of her,' says Mandy. ‘You didn't choose what you was born into. We're all in the same boat now, ain't we? Go on, mate.'

So I carry on. ‘I lay there on the beach and the pictures danced in front of my closed eyelids. Until gradually the sunshine made them go still. I seemed to realize some important things, but they were those slippery thoughts you get on hash which slide away. Like sand through your fingers. Gone almost before you've thought them. From time to time we swam. The cold of the water was a shock which turned your body inside out until the shock of the heat worked its way back in again. In the evening they cooked a meal again and I ate with them. Then I walked back along the beach in the dusk to my room.'

‘Wait a minute,' says Debs. ‘The water. That cold? Even in summer?'

I nod. ‘That cold.' The woman has an eagle eye for detail. I wait but she seems satisfied so I carry on:

‘On the third day when I arrived, Sigurd had clothes on – a pair of tan slacks and a T-shirt. He was going into town for supplies. He set off with an empty rucksack. Joris put the water on, and we lay in the sun waiting for the tea as usual.

‘“Today are we alone,” he said very deliberately.

‘After the tea we swam and spread out our towels on the beach. My skin was tingling from the ice-cold water. I shut my eyes and slept or day-dreamed, I'm not sure which. When I opened them, I noticed that Joris had moved his towel and was lying next to me.'

There's a jangling of keys outside the door and I hear it swing open.

‘Exercise, put your shoes on, hurry up,' says a plump officer, breezing in with a big smile. ‘You too, McPhearson.' Beverly groans from her bed, ‘I ain't going nowhere.' The officer shrugs, ‘Your loss, love.'

The yard is concrete, broken up by brick-built flower beds. Last summer's flowers, if there ever were any, are long gone, and only a few wintry leaves stick to the barren earth of the beds. The rain has stopped but it's wet underfoot. My old boots slurp along without their laces. The yard is surrounded on three sides by high brick walls, and on the fourth by a two-storey wing of the prison building. On the ground underneath the windows are piles of things thrown out of the cells: dirty clothes, apple cores, vomit. Underneath one is a collection of hamburgers and chips from last night's supper, with paper plates and lettuce leaves scattered around.

As we huddle together, our breath hovers and disperses in the bitter air. Debs asks me, ‘So was that it, then?'

‘What?'

‘With the blond guy on the beach.'

‘Sort of,' I say, hoping to leave it at that.

‘You're going to tell us, ain't you? It was just getting interesting.'

‘You really want to know?'

‘Blow by blow,' says Mandy, ‘We want to hear all the juicy bits.'

‘It was a long time ago,' I say.

‘Bet you can remember. I bet if I'd been with a bloke in Greece I'd remember.'

When we get back to the cell, Beverly is still asleep under the bedcovers. Debs goes to the toilet to throw up. Mandy watches her go and says, ‘She's been in longer'n me. She's clucking bad.'

I think I've mis-heard. ‘Clucking?' I ask.

‘Coming off. They cut her dose more. I'll be like her soon.' Mandy produces two apples and offers me one.

‘Where did you get them?'

‘Nicked from the kitchen.'

‘Just now? Coming down the corridor?'

‘Been a professional shoplifter for eight bloody years, ought to be able to pick up a couple of apples when a door's open.'

Debs comes back from the toilet clutching a towel, and lies on her bed in her shoes. Brown ankle boots with a tiny sharp heel. ‘Come on, help me take my mind off it. All the sexy details.'

‘This is my life we're talking about, not a peep show,' I protest, taking off my boots. The pounding in my head comes back when I bend over.

‘Yeah, but you've lived it already,' says Mandy, ‘It's past and gone, init? Can't hurt to run over it to give us a bit of entertainment.'

‘It's embarrassing. It's not something I normally talk about.' Particularly the next bit.

‘What's normal in here?' says Mandy. ‘Anyway, people are too stuck up about all that stuff. Everyone does it, don't they? Just too scared to talk about it.' She eyes me evenly. Her face is flat and indifferent. It isn't cold, but you get the sense that any feelings she has are wafting around the edge of her vision. Brushed aside like the odd flyaway strand of peroxide hair.

Dr Johnson once said of someone, ‘She has some softness, indeed, but so has a pillow.' Mandy has some hardness, but so has a mountain rope.

I climb back onto my bed and decide to bite the bullet. ‘OK. So I was lying there in my bikini, and he was next to me. The gold neck chain he always wore was resting on his chest in a coil among the fair hairs. He seemed to be asleep. I drifted off again and my daydream mixed with a feeling that soft feathers seemed to be trailing over my body. Rivers of sensation spreading over my skin. I opened my eyes and found Joris was running his fingers over me. I sat up sharply and looked at him.

‘“You do not like it?” he said, and took his hand away. His eyes did not meet mine. “I thought that you maybe like it. Give you good dreams while you sleep. It not matter.” He turned and started to move his towel away.

‘It had been months since I had let anyone touch my body. “It's OK,” I said, “I do like it.”

‘I lay down and shut my eyes again. A bit of comfort couldn't hurt. This time I could feel his fingers everywhere. On my legs and my arms. Around my neck. On my face. Gentle as air. It was a long time before they strayed onto my breasts. I couldn't seem to move to interfere. I felt the strap of my bikini top sliding off my shoulder. I think I must have groaned because he said something in Dutch and then, hoarsely, in English: “Be free.”

I felt his fingers circling my nipples, then squeezing them. Next thing I felt a finger down below, pulling my bikini bottom aside and wriggling into me. Then two fingers. I felt his gold chain fall onto my chest and smelt a whiff of sweat as his weight came on top of me. Then the two fingers pulled out and I felt three fingers coming in. Cramming against my sense buds. I felt stuffed full. He knew what he was doing. I remember thinking that I had missed the moment when I could find it in myself to stop him.

I tell them, ‘He started with fingers, and then it was…'

‘His slab of meat?' says Mandy.

‘Language,' says Debs.

‘Whatever you call it,' I say, ‘sounds like an anatomy lesson or an insult.'

‘You're all right,' says Mandy, ‘we know what you're talking about.'

‘I hadn't had sex for a long time. He worked his way into me slowly at first. Took his time. I kept my eyes shut. I didn't want to know what I was doing. There was only one man in the world I wanted to make love with, and he was a thousand miles away. I felt this guy probing and his tight body pressing on top of me but I couldn't picture his face. I wondered what would happen if someone came along the beach.'

‘Fucking in broad daylight,' says Mandy, ‘That's always the best.'

Gradually he started to wind like a spring. I could feel his muscles tense. His hands were pinning down my long hair on the sand on either side of my head. So I couldn't move even if I wanted to. I lay still. He pushed like he was trying to reach through me to something he'd lost long ago. I couldn't even hear his breathing.