Authors: Casey Kelleher
With every step that she took away from the prison, Sophia waited for euphoria to sweep over her. When she was finally free, she had expected the sensation of liberation to be strong, instant and overwhelming.
It wasn’t.
Instead, she had stood petrified behind the prison gate, anxiously awaiting her release while the prison officer took her time in signing her out. She had anticipated feeling scared and apprehensive on leaving, but then for this to be countered by an adrenalin rush of freedom. Instead, she was purely terrified. Standing facing the grey steel doors that gradually slid open she had pressed her clammy hands together, as she suppressed the flutter of panic deep down in the pit of her stomach. She was fighting to hold it together, but she couldn't fool herself. She had heard discussions between other inmates whenever reoffenders were brought back in just days after they had been released. They said that they had been drawn in by the system’s regimented routine, institutionalised. Spat out by society only to be sucked back in by Her Majesty’s Service. Prison had long ago stopped being a barrier that kept them away from the outside world; it was their world. At some point this had started to apply to her: the prison had become a bubble around her, cocooning her safely inside it. The thought of staying within its walls now suddenly seemed welcoming to her.
The gates finally fully opened, and Officer Morgan gave Sophia’s arm an affectionate squeeze to reassure her that she would be okay before wishing her the best of luck. And that was it.
There was no grand exit; no fanfare; no crowd of well-wishers waving her away.
It was over. Eight years and she was out.
Sophia’s heart pounded as she focused on placing one foot in front of the other, telling herself repeatedly to keep walking. She was so anxious that her legs trembled; she felt like she was intruding in a world in which she no longer belonged.
As she continued to walk down Camden Road she noticed everyone around her carrying on with their day, just as they had done for all that time that she had been away. It felt surreal. She was free, but she was still just as invisible to the rest of society as she had been when she had been locked away in her cell.
Breathing in the cool September air, Sophia rounded the corner and approached a bus stop. Keeping her head down, to avoid making eye contact with anyone, she stood in a long queue of people. The right bus drew up and stepping onto it, Sophia fished into her pocket for the money that her nan had sent her. Her hands shook so much that she dropped a few of the coins, and as she dropped to the dirty floor to look for them, she had heard impatient tuts from the passengers that she was holding up. Finally, after paying the driver the fare, which was more than she expected it to be, she found herself a seat.
“Oh, excuse me, love.” A lady chuckled as she sat next to Sophia. She was severely overweight, her bottom taking up her own as well as some of Sophia’s seat. “Public transport don’t cater for us real women with all our curves.” Sophia shuffled up against the window and diverted her attention to what she could see out of the window so that she wouldn’t have to make conversation with the stranger.
She thought of Dolly as the bus pulled away and she caught a glimpse of the prison; she stared at it until it had vanished, silently saying a final goodbye to the place she had called home for the past eight years. “Always look forward, Sophia, never look back.” Those had been Dolly’s parting words as they had tearfully embraced that morning, and Sophia had a feeling that she would be using that mantra for some time to come.
Dolly had been a godsend for the past two weeks and Sophia was very sad to leave her behind. Having alienated herself so much from the other inmates during her sentence, Sophia wouldn’t have had anyone else that she could have talked to about her release fears if it hadn’t been for Dolly. They had become great friends. Even last night when she had finally told Dolly about the baby, Dolly hadn’t judged or interrupted: she had simply held her hand and listened with genuine compassion.
It had felt so good to finally tell someone. Years of holding everything in had taken their toll. Now she was out, she knew that she was going to have to face her demons.
Sophia reflected that getting sent to prison had been the scariest thing that had ever happened to her. She remembered the dark, rainy night when they had first pulled up at the young offenders’ institute and how frightened she had been. She had been so petrified that when the officer had checked her in, she had thrown up all over the desk. Right up until the medical examination, Sophia had believed that the nausea she had been down to the fact that she was stressed and hadn’t eaten for days.
“No drugs, that’s good,” the officer had said as she scanned the results of the blood and urine tests.
“And how far along are you, Sophia?” the officer had asked as she jotted down notes.
“Far along? Do you mean how long’s my sentence?”
“No, the baby... How far along are you in your pregnancy?”
“Pregnancy?” Sophia thought that she must have misheard, but the officer nodded. “I’m not pregnant.”
The officer just looked at her. Sophia felt the walls closing in on her, her ears ringing.
Jonathan was the only person that she had slept with, and he’d used a condom. Or so he’d said. And even if that wasn’t the case, it had only happened once, so she couldn’t be pregnant. But she knew she was.
As the officer continued talking about Sophia’s options as a pregnant inmate, the reality of Sophia’s situation sunk in. She felt so faint and disorientated that she thought she might fall off the grey plastic chair. She could feel bile rising up again.
Up until that moment, she hadn’t been able to imagine a worse situation than the one that she was already in: she was being sent to prison for a crime she hadn’t committed. But it had just got worse: a lot worse. God really did have a messed-up sense of humour, she thought to herself as sat in stunned silence as the officer continued to talk.
She listened in a daze as she was told that she would be able to keep her baby with her until it was eighteen months old, and that they would both be moved into the mother and baby unit. The officer explained that she would have an easier time in the baby unit too, where she would be surrounded by other expectant and new mothers, rather than if she were placed on the main wing.
“Trust me, love, this baby will keep you so busy that your time in here will just fly by,” the officer said, as she passed Sophia a tissue to wipe away the tears streaming down her face.
Sophia continued to stare at the officer blankly as she heard that although having a baby in prison wasn’t the ideal start to a young child’s life they would make provisions for her, as they did with all pregnant inmates; they did their utmost to help them make the best of the situation they were in and to enable the mother and baby to bond.
Sophia didn’t want to bond with her baby, though. She didn’t even want it.
As the months went on, Sophia’s decision had remained the same. She didn’t want the baby. Not now; not ever. Her protruding stomach only made her think about the disgusting seed that Jonathan had planted inside of her. It was a large tumour that wouldn’t stop growing, making her sick on a daily basis and sapping her energy. Sophia was so ill throughout her entire pregnancy that she had barely been able to keep any food down; physically weak, as well as depressed, she had spent as much time as she could sleeping.
Even now, all these years later, the memory of her labour haunted her dreams every night. She had dilated so quickly that the medical team had no time get her to the hospital. There was not even time to think about any kind of pain relief. Sophia had been terrified as the agony swept through her body. The baby was coming. Carted off to an empty cell and watched over by the officers, she had screamed until minutes later she pushed the baby out.
When the prison nurse laid the baby girl across Sophia’s, sweat-covered T-shirt, encouraging mother and baby to bond, Sophia had screamed at her to take it away.
Severely depressed, Sophia hadn’t even wanted to look at the child, let alone be its mother. So they did as she said and took away her baby.
Jonathan and his parents had come to the prison as arranged. Social workers had tried to convince Sophia that she might regret her decision. But she was adamant. When they realised she wouldn’t change her mind, they told her that Jonathan’s parents had offered to support him while he raised the baby, which he was keen to do. The social workers had spoken to her for hours, explaining the procedure, informing her that her right to change her mind would be void once she signed the paperwork.
Sophia hadn’t understood why they were trying to make her keep the child; she had been convicted of a murder and was stuck in prison. Surely they could see that the baby would be better off with Jonathan and his family. At least he had said he wanted to care for it. At least his family could provide for it financially. What could she give it? She could barely wipe her own arse without having to ask for permission. No, even if she had wanted to keep the baby, it was better off without her.
As the bus pulled into its next stop, Sophia shook her head as if to banish the memory from her mind as she realised that she had been crying. Wiping away her tears, she looked around to make sure that no-one had noticed how upset she was. She watched people get on and off the bus, keeping her mind focused on the present as she tried to block out the heartache of the past.
A little boy a few rows down waved at Sophia, and his mum smiled at the cheeky little boy who was already familiar with getting attention from strangers. Sophia wondered what the women would think if she found out that her son was gesturing at a convicted murderer. She would judge her: everyone did. She would probably grab her son protectively by his little hand and take him to sit as far away from Sophia as possible.
Sophia glanced away without returning the child’s wave. She didn’t have the energy to pretend to be happy. She may be free but she still felt cheated and robbed.
She should have listened to her lawyer all those years ago and pleaded guilty. Everyone, except for her nan had believed in her guilt anyway. If she had listened to the advice she was given, she probably would have only served a few months inside. The lawyer had wanted to lead with mitigating circumstances, adamant that they should build up a case in her defence by telling the court about her father’s violence. All she had to do was plead guilty and he would do the rest, he had said. He had done his utmost at the time to reassure her that if he could convince the court that Sophia had acted in self-defence then she was likely to be given a more lenient sentence.
But Sophia hadn’t listened. There was no way on Earth that she was going to admit she was guilty of a crime that she hadn’t committed. She hadn’t murdered her father, and no matter what happened she would not be saying that she had. She was innocent and the jury would see that. As for the case that her solicitor was trying to build, Sophia didn’t want anyone to find out the details of her father’s abusive behaviour; her mother wouldn’t have been able to take it, she had just suffered a nervous breakdown and the family name had been dragged through the media and tarnished enough as it was.
Sophia had been convinced that the truth would come out: the killer would be caught and her name cleared. But she was young and naive and had soon been taught that life wasn’t always fair. The Crown Prosecution Service’s case had been built upon a trail of evidence that led back to Sophia. Her fingerprints were on the murder weapon, she had been found covered in her father’s blood and a witness had overheard her saying that she intended on carrying out the crime just two days prior to the attack.
Sophia had begged and pleaded with the jury to believe that she was innocent, convinced that they would listen and realise she was telling the truth. But they hadn’t. Sophia had been convicted of murder and given a ten-year sentence. She had only served eight, but to her it had seemed like forever. And the worst of it was that because she had been convicted of the murder, the case had been closed. No-one had looked for the real killer. Over the last eight years that had been the one thing that she had thought about non-stop. She was serving time, and the real killer was free. They were still out there, carrying on with their life unaffected by their actions. Even now she was out it was on a life-licence. She had years of probation officers breathing down her neck ahead of her, while she asked permission to do what others simply took for granted.
Sophia closed her eyes as the bus slowly continued along its route. It made frequent stops, but she was grateful for its leisurely pace, she was in no great hurry to reach her destination. She knew that once she arrived there she would have to make a start on trying to salvage something from the wreck of her life, and she was dreading it.
When the bus pulled in at her stop, Sophia got off without bothering to look at any of the other passengers or the driver as she exited. She stared at the pavement as she walked, clutching the white plastic carrier bag that held her few worldly possessions tightly against her body, as she made her way back down the old familiar street in which she had grown up. As Sophia walked she imagined the curtains twitching in the houses that she passed, the neighbours all peeping out and having a good old look at the murderer returning to the scene of her horrific crime. She knew that it was just her paranoid mind going into overdrive, the neighbours had probably forgotten about her and even if they hadn’t, she had been a child when she had last been here: surely no-one would even recognise her. Concentrating on the cracks in the paving slabs as she walked, Sophia felt her heart beat faster as she neared her destination. Across the road was the house in which her father had been murdered. She couldn’t look at it. Her nan had told her that someone had bought it years ago, the new residents completely renovating it after the damage that the fire had caused. Her mother had never gone back there: she was in a residential home, and Sophia’s nan had told Sophia that even if she had wanted to go back home, which apparently she didn’t, she wouldn’t have been capable of looking after herself. Most days she was unable to cope with the simplest tasks: she even needed help getting herself dressed some mornings.