Envy Page 16

  ‘I hate Beethoven,’ you snap.

  My body tightens. ‘What’s going on, Faye? You always enjoyed it when I put it on in the past.’

  ‘I’ve gone off it.’

  ‘Since when?’ I ask.

  ‘Since recently. I’m pig sick of it. So repetitive and boring.’

  ‘OK OK, sorry. What do you fancy then?’

  ‘Ed Sheeran.’

  ‘Ed Sheeran it is.’

  I press a button and ‘Galway Girl’ springs into the living room. We sit on the sofa sipping our wine. ‘How are you feeling, Faye?’ I ask after a while. ‘I want to know whether you’re OK?’

  ‘Of course I’m OK.’

  I take your hand in mine and squeeze it.

  ‘There’s no of course about it.’ I pause. ‘We’re allowed not to feel OK. We’ve had a major trauma. Our daughter was abducted. Tamsin has needed counselling. Perhaps you do too?’

  ‘No. I’m coping.’ There is a pause. You pick your wine up from the table and take a sip. ‘But I can’t understand why Erica chose to hound me. Why she homed in on our child. And I also can’t get over why your oldest friend is trying to damage our relationship. That’s the worst of all.’ Tears well in your eyes. ‘Has he, do you think?’

  I put my arm around your shoulders.

  ‘No one will ever be allowed to damage our relationship.’ I caress your back.

  Tears begin to tumble down your cheeks. ‘I’m begging you, please cancel the building work. If we don’t have that I will have no contact with him.’

  ‘But … But …’ I stutter. ‘We’ve paid a large sum up front.’

  You pause to wipe your tears. ‘You know I’ve been trying my best to cope with what’s happened, and I’ve managed quite well.’ You lean forwards and put your head in your hands. ‘Please, please believe me, I really can’t cope with Jonah any more.’

  The more you can’t cope with an old friend you claim you’ve done nothing with, the more I suspect you, Faye.

  122

  Erica

  No longer on remand. A fully fledged prisoner now. Walking towards the north wing with a prison officer, carrying my clothes and toiletries in a plastic bag. About to share a cell. The corridors wind and wind. Like a maze. Will I ever learn to find my way around alone?

  At last the prison officer stops, and presses a code on a door lock. The door opens slowly and together we step inside. It locks behind him. A woman is sitting with her back to us, watching TV. She must be very deaf as the volume is so loud.

  ‘Hello, Sylvia,’ the prison officer shouts above the TV. ‘This is your new cell-mate, Erica Sullivan.’

  She doesn’t turn around. Maybe she hasn’t heard him.

  ‘This is Sylvia Smith,’ the officer explains, gesticulating towards her.

  He looks from side to side nervously and coughs. ‘I’ll be off then. Leave you two to get to know one another. Any problems, press the buzzer.’

  He unlocks the door and leaves. I hear the electronic whirr as he locks it behind him again. I place my plastic bag on the floor, wondering what to do with myself. Still my cell-mate doesn’t turn around. I move towards her and tap her on the shoulder.

  She turns around. A knife-like pain lacerates my cheek and my head snaps back. She has punched me in the face. I hold my hand to my cheek as blood seeps through my fingers.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me again,’ my cell-mate yells.

  The room is spinning around me, moving in and out of focus.

  ‘Let’s get a few things straight,’ she shouts. I look in her direction but my vision is blurred, and I can’t really see her. ‘You are sleeping on the bottom bunk. You can keep your clothes on the floor beneath the bed – I have taken all the drawer and cupboard space. I’m in charge of the TV. You’re not allowed to touch it without my permission.’

  Her face begins to come into focus. She is slim and neat-featured with shiny blonde hair.

  ‘OK OK, that’s fine,’ I manage. ‘What are you in here for?’ I ask with a tremor in my voice.

  ‘Child abduction,’ she snaps.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I know all about you,’ she says menacingly. ‘You are a low-life, taking someone else’s child.’ There is a pause. ‘I took my own child. I don’t deserve to be locked up for that.’

  123

  Phillip

  I ring Jonah’s doorbell. I’m sure he’s in. Lights are blazing from every window of the house, classical music belting out. But there is no reply. So I ring the bell again.

  The door opens. He stands in front of me, dapper in a silk paisley dressing gown. Nothing on beneath it; bronzed muscles peep out, blond body hair nuzzles its way down his chest.

  ‘Long time no see.’ There is a pause. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ he asks with a mocking smile.

  ‘I just want to talk.’

  ‘Come in,’ he says, waving his arm towards the house flamboyantly. Smooth and creamy. Too smooth. Too creamy. Why did I ever trust him?

  He leads me into his drawing room. Gold upon gold. Damask curtains. Regency sofa. Dripping with antiques.

  ‘About Faye?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to apologise about the way I asked you to leave my home several months ago. Rather ungenerous of me when I had invited you round to thank you for saving my daughter’s life. And I’ve bought you a present,’ I say, handing him a striped bottle bag, containing a bottle of Glenmorangie that has set me back fifty quid.

  ‘Why thanks, mate.’

  I squirm inside at his use of the word ‘mate’. His use of such colloquial language has never suited his image or accent. It annoys me more than ever this evening. He opens the bag and pulls the orange and black designer bottle out.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ he says again. What a joke. He is not my mate. There is a pause. ‘But I do understand. I had given you rather a shock,’ he continues.

  I smile half a smile. ‘I’ll cope with it. I know you were lying.’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘Do you?’ He grins wholeheartedly. ‘Do sit down. Would you like a tipple?’

  ‘I’ll just have a beer if you don’t mind.’

  He disappears for a while. I sit in his living room, looking at expensive antiques. A walnut cabinet. A marble statuette of a nude lady. An oil painting of the sea. When he returns, he slips me a cold beer and hands me a photograph.

  ‘Have a look at this,’ he says with a crocodile grin.

  I lift it closer to my face and try and work out what I am seeing. When I realise my insides explode. It is of you, Faye, and Jonah lying together naked on the carpet in this room. I cannot believe it. It looks as if Jonah is taking you from behind. The air around me feels thin. My breathing quickens. I force myself to keep looking at the photograph. At your face, Faye; lips slightly parted, eyes closed. Body contorted with pleasure. My heart is racing. A fist is grabbing my chest as if I am having a heart attack.

  124

  Erica

  Jessica Bell looks crisp today; white linen, gold accessories.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asks.

  I sit opposite her and pull a face.

  ‘Not good then?’ she continues.

  I take a sip of water from the plastic cup in front of me. The cool water soothes me. ‘I lost track of my DBT during the trial.’

  ‘Why do you think that happened?’ Jessica asks, holding my eyes in hers.

  I feel my bottom lip trembling. ‘I felt insecure. I had nothing solid to latch on to.’

  Jessica takes a deep breath. ‘But you are here; you got through it.’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘Only because time passes. Not because I felt in control.’

  Jessica’s body stiffens. ‘Coping with a trial is difficult. It is over now. Let’s just draw a line under it and move forwards.’

  I watch her draw a thick line in pen straight through her notes. She looks up at me, eyes shining with determination.

  ‘I would like to do that,’ I reply. ‘If things go well I sho
uldn’t be in here too long. So I really think I need to do that.’

  ‘You are learning so much, Erica.’ There is a pause. ‘What are your plans for the next few months?’

  I clasp my hands together on my knee. ‘It’s simple. I am going to continue to exercise and lose weight – and continue to confront my issues.’

  Jessica crosses her legs and leans forwards. ‘I’m so impressed. You are a very intelligent, responsive patient.’

  ‘Intelligent? Me?’

  I feel choked. My eyes are misting. No one has ever said anything like that to me before.

  ‘Yes, Erica. You are. And you will move forward from this.’

  I shake my head. ‘But I have a new problem now. A difficult cell-mate.’

  Jessica frowns as she contemplates this. ‘You need to try and understand her then. There are three rules when you have a problem with someone else. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.’

  ‘I’ll try, Jessica, but the last time I tried to communicate with her, she punched me in the face.’

  Jessica’s eyes darken and her face hardens. ‘Then she should be reported to the prison governor, immediately.’

  ‘No. No.’ I shake my head. ‘She has violent connections outside. You have to be very careful not to dob on her.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I heard it whispered in the canteen.’

  Jessica’s pale face becomes paler. ‘Keep your head down then. Try to understand what she might be going through. If anything else happens let me know.’ She pauses. ‘Despite all our best efforts, in prison sometimes things can be difficult. Be careful, Erica. You’re right to be pragmatic. Whatever happens, promise me, you’ll look after yourself.’

  125

  Phillip

  I leave Jonah’s house, temples throbbing, feeling dead inside. I walk home in a daze, not sure exactly where I am at any moment. On automatic pilot I turn the key in the lock, open the front door, and burst inside. The house is quiet. The children must be in bed; when they are awake, noise percolates. I find you tidying our galley kitchen, a Joe Wicks recipe book on the stand by the cooker.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ you ask.

  ‘Jonah has shown me a photograph.’

  Real time dissolves. Everything transposes into slow-mo.

  ‘What of?’

  Your voice sounds contorted as if you are speaking to me from inside a giant bubble. I reply from what feels like the far distance. As if it isn’t me who is speaking, but someone else.

  ‘Of you and Jonah lying together naked on the carpet in his drawing room. To put it delicately it looks as if he is inside you.’

  Here but not here. Speaking to you from another world.

  Slowly, slowly, I watch your face turn ashen. Slowly, slowly, I watch your shoulders rise. ‘He must have fabricated it.’

  My fist clenches, and through this contorted fug of time and distance, for the first time in my life, I want to hit you. To pummel the truth from you. But I restrain myself.

  ‘Why would he do that?’ I ask through clenched teeth.

  You lift your shoulders higher, like a cat about to jump. ‘I’ve told you before. He’s jealous. He’s trying to split us up.’

  126

  Faye

  ‘He’s jealous. He has always been full of envy. Can you really not see that, Phillip?’

  Panic boils inside me. I feel like a volcano about to erupt.

  127

  Erica

  Prison gym. Feet pounding on the running machine. Repeatedly slapping against the moving plastic mat. The mat is moving faster and faster. I am challenging myself so hard today, I can only just keep up. The machine is pushing me backwards so that I’m about to fall off. I tighten my mind and my body. I inhale and exhale deeply, take longer strides and pull my body towards the front. Forty minutes on eighteen kilometres per hour. Thirty minutes gone. Thirty minutes that seem to have taken for ever. The gym is heavily subscribed but I manage a session three times a week.

  Thirty-five minutes gone on the running machine. I look ahead at the wall to try and distract myself from the pain. Creamy grey wall with a crack in the paint. A small spider. A brownish stain. My chest is being pricked by needles. Not enough oxygen going to my tissues. This feat at this speed is a big ask.

  I need to run like this every day. I try to keep fit during association. But it is so cramped in the yard. Last week when I was attempting to jog between the throng of chatting prisoners, I nudged the shoulder of a woman called Sharon, as I passed her.

  ‘Watch it you fucking freak,’ she shouted.

  I carried on around the yard, dodging other inmates. The next time I passed her she grabbed me from behind. I turned to face her. She punched me so hard in my stomach that I fell to the ground winded. She put her head back and laughed. ‘Sylvia’s told me all about you, you bitch.’

  I lay in agony. Sharon and her entourage walked on. Everyone continued to walk past me. After a while an officer noticed me lying cradling my stomach and escorted me to the medical room. The doctor, a wrinkled artificial blonde of a certain age, examined me.

  ‘You’re lucky you’ve not got a ruptured spleen.’ There was a pause. ‘I wouldn’t jog in association – there are a lot of inmates you wouldn’t want to tangle with.’

  ‘But … But … I need to keep fit,’ I spluttered.

  ‘Keep fit, or stay alive? Your choice.’

  Thirty-eight minutes down, two to go. I inhale deeply to catch my breath.

  128

  Jonah

  Phillip is playing it cool. Pretending not to believe me. But I know beneath his calm exterior I am ruffling his feathers, like a cat hunting; biding my time, waiting to pounce. Soon I will come in for the kill and Phillip will be reduced to blood and guts.

  And you, Faye, you must be missing me so much. He is like a gaoler, never allowing you close to me. At the moment I only ever see you from a distance. Every time I go to your house to check on the building work, he is there, and you are nowhere to be seen. You are practically living at the sports club. Members only, with eagle-eyed security. And even though I can’t follow you inside there, I watch you walking to class every day.

  Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to be with you soon. I still love you, Faye.

  129

  Faye

  The girls are at school and nursery, so normally the house would be quiet but the building work has started and it is teeming. Phillip is in charge – working from home, in the middle of the dining area downstairs, watching everyone come and go. Every second of our lives interrupted by drilling or banging from upstairs. Today it is banging.

  I am hiding in our bedroom trying to snatch a bit of time alone. My hand trembles as I reach for my laptop. I settle myself on our bed, back propped up with all four pillows, open it up and start a Google search.

  Fake photography.

  How to manipulate an image.

  An hour later I pad down the stairs to show you, Phillip. You are bent over your laptop; engrossed. I put my hand on your shoulder. You turn around, and when you realise it is me your face hardens.

  ‘Please just look at this,’ I beg, leaving my open laptop displaying the best results from my search, next to yours.

  Your eyes flick across the screen. They turn towards me.

  ‘Oh, Faye, I so want to believe you that it hurts.’

  130

  Erica

  Three rules. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. The words pound in my head as I lie on the bottom bunk of my cell trying to ignore the pounding in my head from Sylvia’s overloud TV.

  Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. What a joke. If I try to speak to Sylvia, her face stiffens and she looks the other way.

  Maybe I am being too complacent. Maybe I need to be more assertive. Mark my own territory. She is watching TV. I want to do some exercise. I step out of bed and put my trainers on. I creep behind her, to the far side of the cell, by the entrance to the bathroom. I grab a towel
and lie on it. I begin to do my stomach crunches.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ Sylvia shouts, above the shouting that is now emanating from EastEnders.

  ‘Keeping up with my exercise,’ I reply.

  ‘Stop it,’ she yells.

  I continue.

  I see her in my peripheral vision, standing up and stamping towards me, head high, shoulders back. A tinge of fear pulsates through me, but I continue to do my stomach routine. She is standing over me, face red, eyes spitting. She is sitting on top of me, her full weight pressing on my stomach.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you are doing?’ she repeats.

  I do not reply. I lie still beneath her, transfixed by her anger.

  ‘You think you’re better than me, don’t you?’ she hisses.

  I shake my head. ‘No.’

  ‘You do. I’ve come across women like you in here before. You think you are less of a criminal than me, just because you have a shorter sentence.’ There is a pause. ‘You are full of your own importance.’

  ‘I hardly know you. How can I judge you?’

  She laughs. ‘You do. It’s obvious. I see it in your eyes. In the turn of your head.’

  ‘I don’t mean to communicate that. It’s not what I think.’

  ‘What do you think of me then?’

  My mind freezes. I do not know what to say. She begins to laugh again, louder this time.

  ‘You have nothing to say. You think nothing of me. That I am a nobody.’ Her laugh is harsh and sharp. It sears into my brain. ‘I’ll show you what I do to people who think I am a nobody,’ she continues.

  She pushes her face so close to mine that our breath is intermingled. She weighs my chest down with hers and suddenly tugs on my left arm. Pain as sharp as electricity lacerates my shoulder. I think she must have pulled my shoulder out of its socket. I yelp and try to breathe deeply to control my anguish.