The Sleeping and the Dead (7 page)

Marty was new to the job, different from any other orderlies she’d been given. It was a cushy number and the other men she’d worked with were eager to please, desperate to make
themselves indispensable so she wouldn’t find it easy to sack them before the end of their stint. They were only allowed six months in the job. It was a security concern. Supervisors and
prisoners shouldn’t have the chance to get too close. Marty was self-contained, efficient. He didn’t tell her about his family or try to impress by talking about the books he’d
read. He didn’t say anything much unless it was about the library. Hannah thought he was probably in his thirties but he had one of those pale-skinned, freckled faces which always look
boyish. She watched him lift a pile of newspapers on to a table and begin to sort them.

‘Why don’t you put the kettle on, Marty?’

He looked up, surprised, then nodded. Usually they had a cup of tea just before opening for the first session and today business didn’t start until the period of lunchtime association at
eleven thirty. But it wouldn’t have occurred to him to comment.

For the first time she wondered what crime he had committed. Her friends – because she did have friends, despite Rosie’s jibe – always asked about that.

‘But what are they in for, Hannah?’ they’d say with the disapproving curiosity of a
Telegraph
reader sneaking a look at the
Sun
. ‘Who do you have to mix
with in there? Rapists? Muggers of little old ladies?’

They were surprised when Hannah said she didn’t know. She was never sure that they quite believed her. It was etiquette, this lack of interest. She wouldn’t have enquired of the
borrowers in the community library where she’d previously worked if they’d ever been prosecuted for speeding or tax evasion. Besides, it was irrelevant. It didn’t matter. The
prison was separate from the outside world. So long as the men fitted into the system and caused no bother, nobody much cared what had happened to bring them there. Except perhaps Arthur, her
colleague. It seemed to matter to him very much.

Looking at Marty filling the kettle at the small sink in her office, she thought suddenly: it must have been an offence of violence. It was a revelation and she wondered why she hadn’t
realized it before. He was angry. Continually angry. He controlled it well and kept it hidden but now that it was obvious to Hannah she thought it explained a lot about him. That was why he kept
himself to himself. It was the only way he could keep his anger in check.

She phoned home. There was no reply. Of course. Rosie would still be in a bed in a strange house, sleeping off the excesses of the night before. Not that she’d wake with a hangover. The
young never seemed to have hangovers. Then, with the same sense of startling revelation she’d had when looking at Marty, it occurred to her that Rosie might not be on her own in bed. They
never discussed her relationships with men. If ever Hannah broached the subject, talking elliptically perhaps about safe sex, she’d roll her eyes towards the ceiling and say, ‘Oh Mum.
Please!’

Hannah thought there was a boy. Joseph. He phoned and when Rosie was out she took messages. If she was in they talked for hours and she’d hear Rosie laughing. But when he came to the house
it was always as part of a crowd and often he had his arm round another girl. If Rosie was hurt by that she didn’t show it. Hannah hoped Rosie did have a love. She wanted something magic and
gut-wrenching for her daughter. Don’t wait, she wanted to tell her. Do it now. Soon you’ll have responsibilities. You’ll be too old. Trust me. I know what I’m talking
about.

While Marty squatted by the tray on the floor, squeezing tea bags in the tasteful National Trust mugs she’d brought from home, Hannah started opening her mail. There wasn’t much. A
memo from her boss in the Central Library about budgets. An agenda for the prison librarians’ summer school. A plain white envelope with a handwritten address which she recognized
immediately. Something similar came every year. Before she could open it the phone rang again. It was Rosie, bristling with righteous indignation.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I hope you’re ready to apologize.’

It caught Hannah on the hop. She didn’t know whether to snap back a sarcastic answer or make an attempt to be conciliatory. She knew why that was. She was afraid Rosie would up sticks and
move in with Jonathan and Eve if she upset her too much. Rosie had never mentioned it, hadn’t used it as a threat, but Hannah was always aware of the possibility. In the end she wasn’t
given a chance to respond.

‘Look,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m sorry. It must be a difficult time at the minute.’

Hannah could have fainted with shock. ‘And for you. Waiting for your results . . .’

‘Oh, sod the A levels.’ She paused. ‘I’m working this afternoon but I’ll be home by six. You can take me to the Grey Horse. Buy me a pint.’

Hannah bit back a lecture. She was always telling Rosie she drank too much. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Why not? That would be great.’

When she replaced the phone Marty was standing looking at her, a mug in each hand.

‘Trouble?’ he asked, in an offhand sort of way to show that he wasn’t prying.

‘No. Not really. You know what kids are like.’

‘I know what I was like when I was a kid.’

‘Trouble?’

‘All the time.’ They smiled. He went back to sorting newspapers.

Dave the prison officer attached to the library came in, jangling his keys, demanding tea. Hannah opened her letter. Inside there was a printed invitation and a handwritten note. She read the
note first. The handwriting was scrawled but familiar. She recognized it from way back. It had been dashed off in a hurry and there was a stain which could have been coffee on the back.

She didn’t need to look at the signature. It was from Sally. At school Sally had been her best friend. She hadn’t seen her for years but they kept in touch, spoke
occasionally, sent Christmas cards. The card was an invitation to a school reunion. Cranford Grammar. Sally tried the same tactic every time something similar was arranged. Recently the invitations
were always sent to the prison. Perhaps she thought it was Jonathan who prevented Hannah’s attending.

Hannah threw the card on to the desk where she sat to stamp the books, then picked it up again to look at the date of the party. It was only a couple of days away, one of her late shifts. She
thought it was typical of Sally to allow her so little time to come to a decision and arrange her affairs. For the first time she was tempted to go to the reunion, to see Sally and her other
friends again. It was only pride which had kept her away. She propped the card between her mug and a box of library cards.

Hannah was never sure how the argument started. Perhaps she’d done something to provoke it, but she didn’t think so. Rosie’s phone call had made her more
mellow. Later she remembered the conversation she’d heard on her way in about a disturbance on the wing. Apparently there’d been rumours of an early lock-up because of a Prison
Officers’ Association meeting and the whole place was still tense. There’d been no sense of that though when she’d let the men in.

In the first group there was a lad she didn’t recognize as one of her regulars. He was young, squat, muscular. A tattoo of a snake twisted from his wrist to his shoulder. His hair was
cropped so short that pink skin showed through the stubble. He mooched around the shelves for a bit, but Hannah didn’t have the impression that he was looking seriously for anything. She
noticed that Marty was keeping an eye on him too. She wondered if he was new, though he hadn’t been at the last reception talk she’d given.

She came out from behind the desk. Dave was in her office with the door shut. She’d heard that he was moonlighting in one of the clubs in town. Certainly he liked to catch up on his sleep
in the mornings. She approached the lad with the tattoo, thinking she could be making up a ticket while he was choosing. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

He turned to face her squarely. He was slightly shorter than she was.

‘Not doing you any harm, am I?’

‘Of course not. I’ll leave you to it.’ She was thinking she’d had enough of oversensitive adolescents. Perhaps something of the weariness showed in her face, but she
wasn’t aware of it.

Suddenly he banged his hand on the edge of a metal shelf then lifted it towards her, a gesture of warning. She could see the red mark from the shelf on his palm.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’

‘I’m sorry. Like what?’ Out of the corner of her eye Hannah saw Marty standing behind the man, his knees slightly bent, watching. She willed him to keep out of it.

‘Like I was a piece of shite. Like I was something on the bottom of your shoe.’

‘I think you’d better leave,’ she said, much as she’d said to the drunken kids lounging around her kitchen the night before. ‘Come back when you know how to behave
properly in a library.’

‘Don’t worry I’m going.’ He pushed out and sent one of the shelves flying. On the top was a plant – one of her attempts to cheer up the room. The pot shattered. The
books were covered in dry compost. ‘Do you think I want to stay here and look at an ugly cow like you?’ He spoke quietly, with intense contempt, looked around the room and swaggered
out.

It was the sort of incident that happened every day in the prison. There was no physical violence against her. No threat of it even. She’d handled worse in her time there. Much worse. But
Hannah went to pieces. She started to shake and then to cry.

Dave the library officer emerged from her office, yawning, wanting to know what the noise was about. He was embarrassed, desperate to play the incident down so he’d not get into trouble.
Hannah got rid of the other prisoners then sent him away.

Marty pulled the shelf upright and replaced the books, shaking out the compost, checking the spines so they were in order. Then he put on the kettle and made more tea.

‘You need a break,’ he said. ‘A holiday.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We have to stay in this place. You can escape whenever you like.’

‘Perhaps.’ She sipped the tea. He’d used powdered milk and the liquid was very hot. It burnt her mouth. ‘My husband left me three weeks ago. I’m not sure where
I’d go on my own.’

She thought she shouldn’t have spoken to a prisoner like that. They’d been taught not to give personal details away.

‘What about a trip to the hills? You could look up your old friends.’

She was shocked. He must have read the card when he collected her mug. She wasn’t surprised that he’d read the invitation but that he’d commented on it. It wasn’t like
him.

‘Sorry,’ he said, blushing slightly as if he’d read her thoughts. ‘None of my business.’

‘No.’ The temptation returned to run away. ‘No. It’s an idea.’

Arthur Lee was sitting in his office in the education block. His door was open. He saw Hannah walking down the corridor and waved her in.

‘Aren’t you busy?’ She had walked that way hoping to talk to him, but had to pretend she didn’t want to intrude.

‘Nah, it’s good to see a friendly face.’

Arthur was a Home Office imposition on the education department and they’d never liked him. He was too clever and reported straight to the Governor. A psychologist by training, he ran
courses in anger management, victim awareness and special sessions for sex offenders. That was another reason for his unpopularity. Since Jonathan had left, Hannah had taken to dropping in on him
more often, using him, she sometimes thought, as a personal therapist. He was in his early fifties, the age her father had been when he died. She’d have liked a father like Arthur, plump,
comfortable, understanding. He’d been born in Liverpool and had never lost the accent. John Peel, she thought, without the beard.

‘I hear you’ve had a bit of bother.’

She should have known it would be impossible to keep the incident in the library quiet. She shrugged, explained what had happened. ‘Some lad kicking off. Marty thinks I should take a
break.’

‘Marty?’

‘My orderly. Fox. D Wing. You haven’t had him on one of your courses?’

She was thinking anger management. Arthur shook his head. Perhaps he wouldn’t have told her anyway.

‘Sounds like good advice.’

‘There’s a school reunion. In Cranford. Up in the hills where I grew up. But I’m not sure . . .’

‘I’ll come with you if you like.’

Hannah was surprised. She knew he was on his own but they’d never met outside the prison. She hadn’t thought of him at all as the sort of person she’d take to a party and
needed time to get used to the idea.

‘It’s too far to come back the same night. I thought I’d stay with my pal Sally. Make a weekend of it.’

‘That’s fine then.’ His tone was easy but she felt she’d been unkind. She didn’t want to offend him.

‘I’m taking my daughter out for a drink tonight. Why don’t you join us later?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. He seemed pleased but he never gave much away.

Hannah wondered what Rosie would make of him. At least, she thought, it would prove to Rosie that she did have a life outside the family. She did have friends of her own.

On her way home Hannah called in to her boss at the Central Library and told her she wanted to take a week’s holiday. It was short notice but something had come up. Marge, her boss, was so
sympathetic that Hannah knew she’d heard about Jonathan and Eve. ‘Have as long as you like, pet.’

They lived in a small town. By now it would be common knowledge.

Her mother always made her feel so sodding guilty. Rosie replaced the receiver, glad the conversation was over. The house was quiet. Mel was still asleep and Mrs and Mr
Gillespie had left hours before to go to work. Mel was Rosie’s best mate and had been since coming to the school three years before. She had spiky red hair and green eyes and she played the
bass guitar. Rosie was starving but she could hardly pour herself a bowl of cornflakes in someone else’s house. Besides, she needed to go home to change or she’d be late for work. Mel,
whose parents were seriously rich and seriously generous, hadn’t felt the need for employment between A levels and college. Rosie didn’t mind working. It was a distraction.