What Have I Done? (4 page)

‘No, I stayed because of the drugs. My kids were in care within a year of him moving in. I don’t see them no more.’

Jojo spewed out her words with bravado. But Kate saw the flash behind her pupils and the flush in her cheeks at the mention of her children. She had noticed the way Jojo unconsciously and momentarily cupped the left breast that had fed those children. It told her she would have loved to have been a good mum had circumstances been a little kinder.

Kate looked at the book in front of her: ‘
Frailty, thy name is woman
…’

She sat in the chair at the front of the class, aware that
all eyes were upon her. It broke her heart, the very idea, the waste. Kate felt a sense of futility; what would teaching these girls about Shakespeare achieve? Would it bring back Jojo’s kids, help Kelly reach stability? Of course not. Was it more about her stupid, self-indulgent desire to teach?

Kate was aware she had to do something. She swallowed hard and closed the text. Her voice was soft.

‘Sometimes it’s easy to judge others in the cold light of day or to say how you would react in a certain situation, but I think the one thing we all have in common is that we know how hard it is to make the right decision when your mind is so scrambled with tiredness, fear or drugs. We judge Ophelia just like people will be judging us, all of us, and they will probably never know what it’s like to walk in our shoes. I know that I can’t even make a cup of tea without crying when I’m feeling a bit lost, when I’m that worn down, let alone make a good choice. I guess what I’m saying is that life is not always straightforward or easy, but I don’t have to tell you lot that.’

There was a faint ripple of laughter, but generally there was a hush as each considered the bad choices that had led them to that strip-lit classroom in Marlham’s women’s prison.

The scrape of metal chair legs against the floor made everyone turn their heads. Janeece had been sitting at the back of the class, listening intently and making copious notes as she always did. Kate had thrown her an olive branch when she had first arrived and Janeece, who had never known support of any kind, had grasped it with both hands.

She stood slowly, tugging at the hem of her grey T-shirt, trying to cover her ample stomach. Then she addressed the class, an act which took all her courage.

‘I think sometimes leaving is the easy choice. It takes courage not to bugger off. It must be harder to stay in a situation that is
scary or horrible than to go. My mum left as soon as anything got tough. She kept leaving until one day she just went for good. I was six. Things were quite shitty when she was there, but they got a whole lot more shitty when she’d gone. It would have taken balls to stay and sort the mess out. Ophelia says, “we know what we are, but know not what we may be”. I think this means that we can all make good choices if we try and that we can be whatever we want to. It’s up to us.’

Kate beamed. If she had given Janeece the confidence to stand up in public and quote Shakespeare then maybe her role wasn’t so self-indulgent after all.

She and Janeece had come a long way since their first encounter. At the time, Kate had been just a month into her sentence. She was happy that her first weeks had passed without event. She had managed to keep to a routine of sorts and was sleeping all right despite the night-time noise levels.

She was sitting at the large table in the communal area on the ground floor as she did most afternoons. Most of the women were either clustered around the television, playing pool or knitting, but as usual she had her nose in a book. That day it was Thomas Hardy’s
Under the Greenwood Tree
. Her hair was still neat in its immaculate bob; years of cutting it herself to keep it tidy and pretty would certainly pay off in here. She felt a prod in her back and swung round to face an enormous, acned teenager of mixed race.

‘Yes, can I help you?’

The girl’s response was swift and hostile.

‘You is in my seat!’ she snarled through gritted teeth.

‘Oh, right, and who might you be?’

Kate had years of practice at hiding fear and remaining calm; she knew it best not to rise to any provocation. Her heart beat loudly against her ribs nonetheless. Was this going to be her
first sticky moment? She smiled at the girl as though she were engaging a lost six-year-old she had found wandering alone in the local supermarket.

‘Janeece.’

‘Well, Janeece, it is very nice to meet you. I’m Kate.’

She held out her hand.

The girl reluctantly unfurled her own fingers and extended her palm. Kate shook it and Janeece quickly pulled away, not used to physical contact.

‘Firstly, Janeece, I think that this seat belongs to anyone that wants it, and secondly, you say, “you
are
in my seat” and not “you
is
in my seat”; do you hear the difference?’

Struck dumb, Janeece appraised the middle-aged woman who looked like a teacher and spoke like Mary Poppins. She nodded.

Kate continued. ‘I’m just about to start
Under the Greenwood Tree
by Thomas Hardy. Have you read it?’

Janeece shook her head.

‘Nah. I don’t
do
readin’.’

‘Well, that is a great shame, Janeece. You are missing out on a million different worlds that you could visit, which when your own world consists of these grim walls, might be a good thing to do. Why is it that you don’t “do” reading?’

The girl stared at her and, without responding, bit her bottom lip, angry, embarrassed and ashamed. Her likely response floated into Kate’s mind as surely as if Janeece had spoken the words out loud: ‘
Because I’m not very good at it. I don’t read because I can’t read very well, I don’t know all the words
…’

‘Did your mother or your teacher never read you a book? My daughter used to love that.’

Janeece shook her head slightly, to indicate ‘no’ and also to
banish the image of her mother, the slapping flat hand with the long nails that scratched, her voice like a machine gun in her head: ‘
You are a fat, useless piece of shit; you are nothing and you will always be nothing, just like your shit of a father
.’

‘Would you like me to read it to you?’

Kate showed her the cover.

‘Wha’?’

Janeece pulled her head back on her shoulders. Was this woman mad? Did she look like a baby that wanted story time?

‘I said, would you like me to read it to you? It’s a lovely story, I think you’ll like it! But, Janeece, be warned, once you fall in love with Hardy it can become a bit of an addiction. We would then have to progress to
Far from
, and
Tess
of course.’

Without speaking, Janeece sloped around the table and pulled out the chair opposite Kate’s.

‘How much of it are you goin’ to read?’

Maybe she would listen, just for a bit.

‘Oh, Janeece, I am going to read all of it, cover to cover, word for word; all of it! Not eighty or so words here and there, but all of it and then, if I like, I might go right back to the beginning and read it all over again!’

‘But you’d already know what ’appens!’

Janeece shook her head as though it was Kate that had misunderstood the concept of book reading.

‘Oh, I’ve already read it many times. But that’s the lovely thing about books; they are never the same twice. Every time I read this story I picture something different, learn something new, and the ending always takes me slightly by surprise. It’s like heading to a particular destination, but taking a different route each time you go. That way you see and feel new things each time you travel, and when you arrive, it’s always a bit of a mystery quite how you ended up there! So, Janeece, would
you like to go on this journey with me?’

The girl considered this.

‘Awright. But most people in here don’ mix with me cos I’m dangerous.’

‘Well, I am not most people and I think we can all be a bit dangerous, when provoked. Now, are you sitting comfortably, as they say?’

‘What you in for?’

‘Janeece, are we going to start this book or not?’

‘Yeah, but I wanna know what you’s in for. I wanna know who I’m mixin’ wiv.’

‘I don’t know why it is important, but if you insist. I am here because I killed someone. I stabbed my husband with a very sharp knife and I watched him bleed to death. I just sat and watched until he gurgled his last breath. He tried to ask for help, tried to beg, but I didn’t listen to his pleas and I certainly wasn’t going to help him.’

Kate was trying to earn her stripes.

‘Why d’you do that?’

The girl was all ears. Bingo!

Kate leant across the table and whispered conspiratorially, ‘He wasn’t very nice to me, Janeece.’

Janeece had nothing more to say.

Kate began:

Remembering the day she introduced Janeece to reading always gave Kate a small swell of pride. Yes, she was in here, her skin slowly greying from the lack of fresh air and good veg, but that really didn’t matter in the great scheme of things. What mattered was each small difference she could make to someone else’s life.

Her cell door was ajar and Kate became aware of a presence in the doorway. Janeece’s Herculean form stood blocking the light, a piece of A4 paper clutched in her hand.

‘Is everything all right, dear?’

It was rare for the girl to come to Kate’s cell; the two usually met in the reading room or in class. Kate couldn’t accurately read her expression.

‘I did it, Kate! I bloody did it!’

Janeece’s tears clogged her nose and throat; she hadn’t cried in years. Her childhood had taught her that crying was futile, but this was different, these were tears of joy.

Kate jumped up, knowing instantly what she was talking about.

‘Oh, my love! Well? What did you get?’

The excitement bubbled from her.

‘I got an A star in English and an A in French and a B in Maths. I did it, Kate! I can’t believe it, but I bloody did it!’

Kate rushed forward and took the girl into her arms, cradling her bulk as best she could. She spoke into her scalp.

‘I am so proud of you, Janeece! I really am!’

‘I find it hard, but that won’t stop me. I’m going to be the very best that I can, even if it isn’t easy.’

‘Nothing worth having ever is, love, and when you leave here, Janeece, you have a very bright future. It’s like you said: if you try, you can be whatever you want to be. It’s up to you
now. All the hours you have worked, it will all pay off. You have conquered the hardest part, believing in yourself! Look at how much you have changed, how far you have come. The rest should be a walk in the park and you won’t be alone. I’ll be there for you.’

‘It’s all because of you, Kate. You changed my life, an’ it’s all because of you. I had nothing and now I have something. I’m gonna go to university and I will be someone and it is all because of you.’

She whispered into her teacher’s shoulder, the words inaudible to anyone else, but Kate heard them, loud and clear.

‘Morning, Mrs Brooker.’

‘Good morning, Mrs Bedmaker.’

The boys spoke simultaneously – only a knowing ear could decipher or distinguish between the two greetings. Both boarders smiled through their fashionably long fringes. Kathryn had much preferred it when regulations had required boys’ hair to be worn above the collar and over the ear, feeling that this better prepared them for the conformity of the workplace. But she knew enough about teenagers to keep such thoughts to herself.

The two ambled along in no hurry to get to wherever they were heading, vigorously bumping shoulders in order to send the other skittering off the path, which made them laugh. If one were to topple over, that would be hilarious. With grubby, dog-eared books in hands, shirts hanging outside their trousers, ties a little too loose about the neck and jersey sleeves rolled up, it told her all she needed to know about how they viewed her.

Had it been Mark or one of the stricter masters outside that morning, they would have been tucking and smoothing, hiding and straightening. Not for her, though; no such courtesy for her.

She smiled at them: two sweet boys. They had been at Mountbriers since they were in single digits and she had watched them grow into these teenagers full of life, fun and promise. As ever, a flurry of emotions swirled through her: she was happy
that they saw her as ‘soft’ and felt relaxed in her presence, but sad that they felt able to mock her by calling her ‘Mrs Bedmaker’, probably considering her too slow to notice. They were wrong; she always noticed. Always.

She removed the dolly pegs from her mouth and smiled as though oblivious.

‘Good morning, boys! Lovely day today. On your way to lessons?’

They nodded.

‘What have you got first period, anything interesting?’

‘Classics, worse luck. Really boring.’ Luca answered for them both.

None of the trio heard Mark tread the shingle in his soft soles; he approached the washing line at which his wife laboured with something bordering stealth.

‘
Boring
, Mr Petronatti? Did I hear you refer to a fine and informative subject like Classics as
boring
?’

‘No, sir! Well, yes, I did, sir! It is, but not when you teach it!’ Luca scrambled to verbal safety using flattery as his rope and harness.

‘I am jolly glad to hear it, Luca. Am I right in assuming that you are both heading back to your boarding house to get properly dressed? Not sure Mr Middy would like to hear of extra duties being handed out to Peters House boys for inappropriate dress, and I’m quite sure he would not have let you come over to main school so shabbily attired. What did you do? Wait until he had finished roll call and then leg it out the back door after breakfast?’

The boys sniggered into their palms; that was
exactly
what they had done.

‘Thought as much.’ Mark nodded in jest.

Without a word, they turned a hundred and eighty degrees
on the path. With straight backs and heads held high, they began retracing their steps.

‘Did you catch the match last night, boys?’ the headmaster shouted at their backs.

They turned their heads as they continued walking away.

‘Oh, sir! It was gutting. We were robbed!’

‘Aha! Just goes to show that even with all that fancy Italian footwork, we can still whoop you!’

‘You got lucky, sir, that’s all!’

‘Is that right? And by the way, boys, if you are trying to use the correct football lingo, it is “we
was
robbed” – only ever “we
were
robbed” if talking cricket. Got it?’

The two laughed even harder as they quickened their pace towards the dorms. They loved him. All the kids did.

Mark brushed past his wife and wandered towards the rose bed that formed the waist-high perimeter at the back of their private garden. With hands on hips he surveyed the scene in front of him. The house sat as a separate wing to the Upper School, with a large patch of immaculate lawn overlooking the main sports fields. The school itself was Gothic in places, but largely Georgian in construction. The main administration block reminded Kathryn of an oversized doll’s house with its four large, symmetrically placed square windows and panelled front door with lion’s-mouth knocker. She sometimes imagined removing the front completely and moving the little dolls around inside. The classrooms were spread around two main quadrangles and there was a beautiful early-nineteenth-century chapel.

It was one of those fine English establishments whose every angle offered a postcard opportunity and whose character and history were far more impressive than the day-to-day running would have you believe. It had a reputation for being elitist, proud and superior, and with good reason. Mountbriers
Academy was a centre of excellence in many subjects, from science to art. Its alumni included high-ranking military men, prime ministers, scientists and medics of note; attending the school therefore carried its own pressures.

The school’s elaborate gold emblem, with eagle wings spreading behind it and the Latin motto beneath –
Veritas Liberabit Vos
; Truth Shall Set You Free – adorned not only all sports kit and blazers, but also bags, vehicles and even the school bins; everything was similarly stamped. The school did not miss an opportunity to advertise the elitist symbol that set its pupils apart. In Finchbury and its surrounds it was instantly recognisable as a badge of privilege that few could aspire to. Not that the paying parents minded; it was all part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign to keep the fees rolling in.

Gone were the days when it was all down to a recommendation from an old boy and a strenuous entrance exam; days when many a titled family would pace their panelled hall and snap at the staff, waiting anxiously for the cream, crest-embossed envelope whose contents would either smooth their son’s path through life or hamper it.

Nowadays it was all very different. As long as your parents had the requisite bank balance, you too could run amok wearing a rugby shirt that would normally cost fourteen pounds, but once embroidered with the Mountbriers logo had to be purchased from the school shop for a shade under forty.

A more shocking fact for many Old Mountbrierens was that the school now allowed the female of the species to attend. The offspring of newly moneyed families desperate for social elevation, the children of oligarchs with their eyes on European prizes, and Trustafarians whose Right Honourable parents wore extra jerseys to stave off the damp in their crumbling, country piles – all now rubbed shoulders along the portrait-lined
corridors and ivy-clad walkways, each step reinforcing just how very fortunate they were.

Mark hummed an excerpt from his favourite Tchaikovsky overture, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, the only one he knew. Stepping forward and removing a pair of nail scissors from his inside pocket, he snipped the head off a full-bloomed rose. It was one of Kathryn’s favourite varieties, a blushing pink called ‘Change of Heart’.

Kathryn tucked in her lips and bit down, a physical trick she employed to stem the words of dissent that often gathered behind her tongue. It was easier that way. She quietly winced, calculating that the flower would have remained beautiful for another week or so, maybe ten days at a push, without a rough wind to shake its darling buds. It would now wither and die within the hour. Mark tucked the cutting into his button-hole and lifted his lapel to inhale the scent; satisfied, he bent again and with great deliberation removed a second flower. Turning to his wife, he held out his hand, presenting her with the gift.

‘Amor vitae meae
.’ His voice was low and clipped.

Love of my life. Kathryn didn’t lift her eyes from the ground, but took the proffered flower between her thumb and forefinger. Mark placed his index finger under her chin and raised her face until she looked him in the eye.

‘That’s better, my wonderful wife. Now I can see your lovely face properly. What do you say?’ he prompted. ‘What do you say for the gift of a rose?’

‘Thank you,’ she offered in a whisper.

He lowered her head and kissed the top of her scalp.

‘Oh my God, you two lovebirds, get a room!’

Their fifteen-year-old daughter mimed retching as she walked past, weighed down beneath a rucksack full of books.
Her skinny legs appeared to dangle in their black tights, and her long, dark hair was full of knots and styling product; again, the correct look of the day, and not to be remarked on.

It amused Kathryn to see how far the children would go to push the limits of ‘acceptable uniform wearing’. To the untrained eye, even with a sleeve rolled up, a tie in an unconventional knot or a pair of non-regulation tights, all the pupils looked identical. No matter how scruffily they dressed or how they slouched and swore, they couldn’t shake the stamp of privilege and the whiff of money that followed in their designer-styled wake.

Kathryn ignored her daughter’s comment.

‘Are you home for supper, Lydia, or have you got art club?’

‘Dunno. I’ll let you know.’

‘Okay, darling. Fine. Have a great day. And please make sure you eat lunch.’

‘I’ll walk with you, Lyds. Hang on a mo, I just need to fetch my case.’

Mark was happy for the opportunity to catch up with his little girl. His hectic schedule meant time alone with either of their children was precious.

‘No, please don’t, Dad. I’m meeting Phoebe and it is just too uncool to arrive at lessons with you.’

‘Uncool? I’ve never heard anything like it!’ He feigned hurt. ‘I’m a very hip and happening dad, I’ll have you know!’ He laughed at her scorn.

‘Oh my God, please shut up! If you were either of those things then you would know not to say “hip” and “happening” for a start! You are both so embarrassing, firstly snogging in public and then trying to be my mate; it is just so cringey! Why can’t I have normal parents? Just for once I’d like a boring mum and dad like everyone else’s, ones that didn’t make everything so awkward!’

Her mother interjected. ‘It was hardly snogging, Lydia.’

No one heard her.

The head and his daughter disappeared around the corner. The echo of their playful banter drifted back in fragmented syllables, interspersed with squeals; it was all jolly good fun. Kathryn tucked in her lips and bit down hard.

Left alone in the garden to continue with her chores, Kathryn wondered what it must be like to have a place that you needed to get to – an office, a shop, a classroom – and what it might be like to be the kind of person that people would miss if you disappeared.

Aware of the flower in her hand, she squeezed the rose until the sap dripped from the petals and ran down her wrist, its heady perfume offering her a few seconds of joy. It wilted in the middle of her scrunched-up palm. Walking to the flower bed, where its siblings and cousins stood proud and tall, she scooped out a handful of soil, placed the rose in the hole, and buried it.

With her hands now free and wiped clean on her apron, she turned her attention to the laundry. She secured one corner of the sheet, then pulled the other end taut and fastened it with another wooden dolly peg.

The peg was one of a set that she had owned for ever, possibly since she was a little girl. She didn’t know for certain when they had been passed on to her, but she knew they came from her mother’s pantry. She could clearly picture the metal box in which they had been kept, with its image of straight-backed, marching toy soldiers on the lid. Her mother had in turn been given them by her own mother. For some reason Mark had allowed her to keep them; they were probably too insignificant to warrant his attention.

Over the years she had acquired and discarded many a
set of lurid plastic pegs with fiddly little springs which often perished before the end of their useful life, but these long wooden splints with their bulbous heads and precision, hand-cut splits would outlive them all. She would in time hand them on to Lydia. The thought made her chuckle; she could imagine Lydia rolling her eyes at the prospect of inheriting a set of pegs. As a little girl, Lydia had shown an interest in them once, carefully selecting a random peg and using a big, fat, black felt-tipped pen to draw two dots for eyes and the upward curve of a smile. Kathryn had named that particular peg Peggy, and it still made her smile on a daily basis. Maybe when Lydia was older she would feel differently; goodness knows, her own views were now so very altered from when she had been her daughter’s age.

In the early days of her marriage, Kathryn remembered feeling comforted by the knowledge that she was probably the third generation to handle these funny little objects. She often considered the clothes that had been held fast; three generations of garments in which her family had slept, worked and loved. She would finger the end of the splint, wondering if it had touched her grandpa’s work shirt or her mum’s silk slip.

She often wondered if her mother and grandmother had derived as much joy as she did from a line strung full of clean laundry. The anticipation of gathering it in huge armfuls and inhaling its fresh, blown-dry scent was itself a unique pleasure. The folding and smoothing of clean garments was satisfying and used to give her a feeling of great contentment. The washing and ironing of clothes had been tangible proof of a family life lived in harmony.

The pleasure she used to take in doing the laundry had, however, been removed from her the day she got married, seventeen years and five months ago. These days there was no
joy in this daily ritual, none at all. Apart from her two children, there was very little joy in her life, full stop.

Kathryn knew that her nickname was Mrs Bedmaker; she had known it for some time, having heard it muttered behind cupped hands and seen it scrawled in chalk and pen on various surfaces, including the underside of a desk and the back of a loo door in the junior common room. She was called it regularly by the more daring children, each hoping that she would not hear and would not comment. Of course she never did ‘hear’ or comment, giving them the confidence to continue. She didn’t mind too much; she had more to worry about than that on a daily basis, much more.