Alphabet (30 page)

The outer doors shoot their locks. There's a clatter of heels on the hallway lino. Sour-faced Bremman brings in the bride and her party. She's tall, wearing a short-skirted cream suit, heels to match, and a hat with an itsy bit of netting over the top part of her face. Add to this a bunch of cream and yellow flowers in her hand, unblemished skin that's got a dash of
coffee to it, and enormous light brown eyes under arched brows. In her wake, a shorter, plumper version that must be her mum, four other older women, a few younger ones, one couple, and a middle-aged black man who is Carmel's uncle, attending because her father is set against the wedding and won't come. The bridesmaid, seven or eight, carries her own flowers, a miniature version of Carmel's. All of the visitors are dressed up, jewellery, hats, nail polish, tie, shoeshine, scent. It's a spectacle all right, like being in a play, and Simon's pleased he took the job on.

‘Simon Austen,' he explains, as he steps forward, holding out his hand, ‘the new best man. Best he could find! Tev, I mean Malcolm, is on his way. Make yourselves comfortable,' he tells them, after the hand-shaking is done. ‘Why not make sure of your seats at the front?' Most of the relatives obediently go and sit, all in a bunch to one side, but Carmel and her mum stay up, walk together slowly around the room, inspecting it. Then they come over to Simon. What are you doing here? is all he can think, I mean, given you could have anyone? But it's not his business is it? Go with the flow.

‘Don't worry,' he says, laughing unnecessarily, ‘Don't worry. He'll be along soon.'

Harrison, C wing Governor, comes in, peering through his glasses to see what's what. He too shakes Carmel's hand, and, to Simon's mind, lingers over it. There's dandruff on the shoulders of his jacket.

‘Your husband-to-be is on his way,' he says. ‘The registrar was stuck in traffic, but I'm pleased to say that she has just arrived at the gates . . . Sorry for the delay. We're doing our best here.' He goes to the door to crack a joke with Sykes. The registrar and her assistant enter next, smiling, open their briefcases and start to set things out on the table at the front. Carmel sits down on a back-row seat, takes out a mirror to check her perfect face and re-apply lipstick from a shiny gold tube, ‘Just one thing missing now . . .' she comments, blotting her lips.
‘So long as he comes,' she adds, shooting Simon a glance through her lashes. Her voice is a bit rough; she's from Leeds,
he guesses, or Manchester. Maybe she is twenty-two, twenty-five at the most. She could be on the cover of
Vogue
, something like that. ‘A year ago, I'd never have guessed I'd be doing something like this,' she says. ‘But now, if he stood me up, I'd be gutted. I don't think I'd get over it.' Her mother, standing behind her, gives her shoulder a gentle pat.

‘Don't worry about that,' Simon says. ‘He never stops talking about you.'

‘Really?' she says.

‘Straight up,' he tells her. Where does this stuff come from?
TV? And where on earth is Teverson? How long can it take to patch up a shaving cut? What would happen if he didn't come?
Anything's possible . . . He smiles at Carmel as encouragingly as he can.

‘Thanks. You're a good mate, I can tell,' she tells him.
‘D'you want to know something, Simon?' she says. ‘I've got a real thing for beat-up-looking older men, so I fancied Tev from the start. But I had my doubts, like, Hey girl, what are you getting into?' She gestures around her. ‘I definitely did have doubts. What made me know I was doing the right thing was this letter he wrote me. Here . . .' She opens her bag again, puts away the make-up, brings out an envelope, flattens the letter on her knee. She looks up at him again, her face breaking into a wide, even-toothed smile, then reads aloud:

‘ ‘‘Carmel, when I am with you I feel as if I could become the best of me that has been hidden so long. I burn with wanting you. I feel I could pass through the eye of a needle.'' Isn't that just so beautiful?' she says. Then, suddenly embarrassed, she looks down at her fingernails.

‘A man who wrote that has got to have some bit of good in him,' her mother adds. Simon can remember, clear as yesterday, coming back to find Teverson pawing his book and reading out those very words, which were written for Berna-dette. He can remember sitting in his cell, writing them. How they seemed to burst out of him. How scared of them he was.
He wanted to say them aloud, and he did. But it didn't work out.

Now Carmel's mother is telling him about some poem Malcolm sent Carmel on Valentine's Day, no doubt nicked from someone else too, or copied from a book, and he's thinking, or trying to: Well, it's made someone happy, hasn't it?
Does it matter that she thinks the wrong man wrote them?
His heart is crashing in his chest: Yes! It matters to him. It ought to matter to her. And the rest of what he knows about Teverson ought to matter too, but of course he can't tell her. She doesn't know him from Adam and even if he did say something, she'd likely not believe him . . . So Simon finds himself nodding and saying, distractedly, ‘Yeah, too right . . .'
as finally, the bastard himself comes in, takes Carmel's hands and kisses her heavily on each cheek: the same for her mother.
Why should he get away with it? Why? Simon thinks, as T waves his greetings at the other guests. Then he grabs hold of Simon's arm.

‘Not bad suits, eh, Android?' Simon eyes him, noticing that T has done what he threatened, shaved off all his hair to get rid of the white bits. There's a Band-Aid, on the back of his head, where it went wrong. And his eyes are red-rimmed, they shine too much, the pupils have shrunk to dots . . . No wonder, Simon thinks, you tried to pay me for this. He says nothing.

‘Got the rings, love?' Tev asks Carmen. ‘Sweet . . . How do I look?' Simon leans in close as if to brush a hair from the bridegroom's shoulder.

‘That letter you wrote to her! –' he says, and knows, immediately that he should wait.

‘What letter? What shit's this?' Tev says, as the door creaks open and six cons, all in suits or dress jackets with white T-shirts under them, file in.
Get a grip
, Simon tells himself.

‘Let's begin,' the Governor booms out.

‘Please be seated,' says the registrar.

‘What?' Tev asks Si.

‘Forget it,' Simon says. ‘Later.'

‘Sit down, Austen,' Sykes calls out.

His seat is at the front. He goes to it and sits, clenched,
through the walk Teverson and Carmel make, arms linked, between the two blocks of chairs, through the preliminaries – the pleasant grey-haired woman talking about how happy it makes her that even in circumstances such as these, two people can find each other, et cetera, et cetera, and that perhaps they stand as good a chance as any of making a relationship that lasts . . . Now, she says, let's begin . . .

So, this is how it goes, Simon thinks, this is the way the world spins. Not that he'd want
this
, not this exactly . . . but someone who said
yes
. Who?
Why?

Teverson, his hand clenched around Carmel's long fingers, turns for a moment to shoot a laser-eyed glare back at Simon:
You dare fuck this up for me mate and you're dead, it means to say. Then he turns back to start on his lines. He clears his throat, declares:

‘I, Malcolm Teverson, know of no legal reason why I . . .'
The shuffling, coughing and finger-drumming stop. A backdrop of silence falls into the big room so that it's possible to hear the speakers inhale at the beginning of each phrase.

‘I, Carmel Rose Summers take you Malcolm Teverson to be my lawful wedded husband. Please wear this ring in symbol of our union.' The room is still silent as the couple lean forwards and sign the register. Then they stand. The women's eyes from one side of the room, the men's from the other, watch the kiss that follows; hands on, deep, and as long as they can get away with. The willowy girl, the stocky, shaven-headed man, Beauty and the Beast. Tev holds her tight, one hand on the curve of her buttock, pulling her on to him. Her skirt rides up.
The disposable camera that was finally allowed in flashes a few times, and when they pull apart there's clapping and stamping from the men, hands full of confetti from the family side.
Teverson, his arm still around Carmel, punches the air – another flash. Everyone gets up, mills around. Carmel is flushed.
She kisses her mother, hugs the little girl and gives her the bouquet to hold.

‘We only have another twenty minutes or so,' the Governor warns. Beaver from the kitchen whisks the covers from the
food. There are paper cups to be filled with sparkling Ribena or lemonade and to help keep his lid on, Simon applies himself to the task. Beaver touts the tray of drinks around. Cigarettes are lit; Teverson introduces the outside and inside groups to each other: May, this is Sparks. Hodge. Ben, good mate of mine . . .' Despite everything, there's a buzz, the smell of smoke, flowers, food and too much aftershave.

Well, Simon thinks, A being for absurd, he might just as well go through with what he's supposed to do.

‘Excuse me ladies and gentlemen –' the room falls quiet.
‘There's no time for speeches, but we must have a toast. Big T and Carmel – good luck to you both.' It comes out like a curse, but no one seems to notice.

‘Here, here!' More flashes. He notices, in the dazzle and the din of the salutations, that Carmel is leaning into Teverson, whispering something. He's frowning but grabs her face in his hands and kisses her briefly. Moments later, the cake is moved to the front of the table. The Governor hands over a knife, which once used, he takes back again and has sent straight back to a place of safe-keeping. Another photo. Five minutes left.
There won't be time to eat the food.

‘Come on, Gov,' Tev suggests, ‘give us another ten minutes.'

‘It would be a nice gesture,' Carmel's mother says.

‘Staffing dictates what we can do here, I'm afraid.'

‘No one's going to miss those two,' Tev points out, gesturing to the door where Sykes and Adams wait.

‘We'll have to wind up now.' The Governor insists. Carmel starts crying. Teverson gets to leave the room last. The rest of them wait about five minutes for him at the first gate. ‘I told Harrison I want that food served up on my landing at supper time. I fucking paid for it,' he tells everyone as he comes through.

‘Too right.'

‘The suit,' Teverson says to Simon. ‘I want it back.'

‘Come and get it then,' Simon tells him. He takes the thing straight off, thinking now if he pissed on it, or ripped the
pockets off, T would be liable and that would be a start, just a start. But actually, it's easier to think once he's got the thing off. Straight away he feels a bit calmer. He puts it properly on the hanger with the plastic cover. No need to go apeshit, he tells himself. No need to revert to type. Wait a day or two, then have it out with him. Tell him he's got to tell
her
. In Wentham, of course, there'd have been a group meeting, but here, it's down to him.

It's only hours later that he passes Teverson, who is coming back from the servery with a tray of stew and rice and a slice of wedding cake.

‘Look,' Teverson says, ‘you can't nick words and who gives a fuck what
you
wrote . . . You're a fucking nonce!' he yells, throws the tray, lashes out at Simon, who dodges to the side, misses most of it. Might just have a chance of getting T to fall if he comes again but someone else grabs him from behind, then Tev knees him in the balls.

‘Get him in the bay!' Simon struggles but soon three of them have got him face down in the cleaning bay with a sock full of batteries crashing down on his head and back. They tie his legs together and his arms behind his back. For a second he can just hear breathing, his, theirs. He rears up, Tev kicks, he careens backwards and his head crashes into the doorway. The world vanishes in starry darkness.

He comes to alone with his mouth, throat and chest ablaze with a searing new pain. He tries to call out but he can't; he sets himself to getting up and crawling out of the door, fails.

Doors crash home on the landing. A light goes on in the cleaning bay, blinding him. An officer yells something into the landing, blows his whistle then starts tugging at Simon's bindings.

‘What the fuck?' the man says, grabbing a plastic bottle from the floor. ‘Bleach? Water!' There are more of them now. They heft him up with his face over the concrete sink, the tap full on.

‘Drink it!' They splash the stuff over him. ‘Get a cup someone!' He drinks, throws up, passes out again.

C

39

Pain is an animal; it lives in his throat, chest and gut. Deep inside, invisible and untouchable, it devours him in order to keep itself alive; threatens, always, to grow. It's in him as he lies between white, starched sheets and he watches, as from a distance, the doctor carefully write something on a clipboard, then attach it to the bottom of the bed.

‘Don't try to talk,' warns the doctor: a very young-looking man with paper-white skin and a bottlebrush haircut. ‘The broken ribs, fractured arm and bruising to the head, that's all routine . . . As for the bleach, you're lucky,' he says. ‘The right action was taken, you'll be OK. Damage to the throat and oesophagus and vocal chords should heal, given time, well, more or less, though there could be some scarring around the mouth . . .' Meanwhile, the doctor explains, it's going to hurt and there's a risk of infection, hence the drip, containing not just electrolyte and pain relief but antibiotics as well. ‘As I said,' the doctor concludes, ‘try not to talk. Your officer is outside.' It would not have occurred to Simon to try to talk. He frowns, and nods imperceptibly to show he has heard, closes his eyes. He tries to turn over, and realises that it is not only the drip that is restraining him; he is also chained to the end of the bed.