Chapter 1
Just one more night. Then it’s done. Anna has packed, a clear plastic bin bag that contains all her worldly goods – tracksuits, a few toiletries. A pile of letters tied with string, pushed into the middle of her clothes. She gave away her mugs, her box of teabags. Travelling light.
Saying goodbye was easier than she’d thought: a rush job in the end, not the drawn-out farewell she’d feared.
Anna’s done her best not to get close to anyone these last years – such things only bring bad luck.
Naomi, her pad mate, got closer than most; persistent.
Kind. The long months spent in lockdown during the pandemic forced the intimacy.
Give it a week, though, and she’ll have put Anna out of her mind.
Anna doesn’t deserve to be remembered.
It doesn’t feel like it now, but it was only a couple of hours ago that Naomi showed her a bottle of vodka she’d sneaked in.
We should make a night of it. But Anna didn’t have time to say no – without warning, she was moved out of their cell into a spare bunk in the First Nights Unit, her bed needed because of an emergency on B wing.
Naomi argued, but Anna didn’t bother. You don’t mind, do you, they said, not really asking.
You might even have the cell to yourself.
Anna nodded, picked up her belongings, followed the guard.
It’s not like it mattered. She was already halfway out, mind flying slipstream behind the train she sometimes hears rumbling in the middle of the night.
It’s good to have this time on her own, adjust to the fact that in a matter of hours, she’ll be out.
This prison’s been her home for more than three years.
Should she feel sad to leave? Sad would mean feelings, though, and Anna doesn’t do feelings.
Not when she can help it. Locks them away with the rest. If she can’t see them, they’re not there.
That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter that she’ll be free soon.
She’ll never escape, not really. The voice will still be there, asking why she’s still walking, breathing, eating, sleeping – all the things she shouldn’t be.
So many nights she’s woken with a scream, bolt upright in the dark, sweat prickling on her scalp, across her neck. At first, Naomi would jump up, ask what was wrong, but Anna could never find the words – an agonising jolt, the stink of hot metal, smash of glass. A small boy crying out for his mum.
It didn’t take long for Naomi to stop asking.
Other nights, Anna’s lain awake in the dark, replaying the last moments before it all went bad.
There’s another Anna out there, one who sleeps in a comfortable bed, wakes to an alarm, not to the sound of her own cries.
In that world, thirty-something Anna has hit all the milestones she was meant to.
Boyfriend, mortgage, solicitor at a big city law firm.
More than any of that, a family that wants her.
That Anna didn’t fuck up. That Anna made a different choice.
A split-second decision that caused all the pain in the world, when everything spiralled out of her control. Now, the ruins of her former life lie behind her, every last item scraped together like the trash it is. At least it won’t be much for them to sort out in the end.
Shouts from the cells around her, the sound of banging, a pounding on the walls.
The atmosphere’s sharper in the First Nights Unit, an expectation of pain to come in the air.
She’s come full circle on her last night inside, back where it all began.
Memories itch under her skin. She still picks at the rash on her hands – sometimes until it bleeds.
She remembers the waiting, the shame, the wave of sound as the cell door slammed shut for the very first time.
She rolls over in the bunk, trying to find a comfortable position, her shoulders hunched up.
It’s the top bunk like the one she was used to, but this feels hostile, unfamiliar, the bedding inadequate, not like the soft duvet and pillow she ordered from a catalogue a year into her sentence.
These she left with Naomi. Now it’s back to basics.
Comfort or not, she wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.
Too many thoughts circling her mind, looping back and forth.
Tomorrow. That’s the easy part. They’ll let her out early. She’s got cash, nearly fifty quid in a hard roll stuffed into her bra.
She’ll get her bag back, the holdall she packed so carelessly years ago, the night before she was sentenced.
Not much more to pack in it now. Then it’ll be time to go.
She’s been told it’s a long wait for the bus, but she can’t afford a cab.
Time was she’d have thought nothing of dropping fifty quid in one go. Even more. But that was before.
Before. She can barely remember that Anna, what she used to think was important. She had everything wrong. Soft, defenceless. Now she’s calcified, all weak spots enclosed – nothing but shell.
Bus, then train. She’s made the journey so many times in her thoughts, the slow stops through the countryside as the buildings get closer and closer together in the approach to London. A tube across the city, another train.
The last train she’ll catch.
She’s meant to have an appointment in the afternoon with probation, but she’s not going to bother with it. There’s no point. Not now.
She rolls over again, trying to dig herself into the thin mattress.
Caught between sleep and waking. As she said goodbye to Naomi, it was as if the distance between them was expanding, the woman growing smaller and smaller as Anna pulled away in her mind, even as they hugged.
Keep in touch, she said, Anna nodding yes, thinking no. No point in causing any more upset.
There’ll be no joy when she takes her first step outside the gate. No reunion for her, no partner waiting with a hug and a smile. Anna hasn’t had a single visitor since she’s been inside.
It’s not like she didn’t try. That last letter she sent to her sister. Please. Just tell me how he is. She’d posted it with such hope. A few words came back. Not known here, Return to sender, letters in black scrawled across the envelope.
The pain hasn’t gone anywhere. It still sticks to her, clawing at her chest. Their faces are blurs now.
Breathe in, breathe out. Slowly, slowly, her heart rate lowers again. She’s got a plan. The pain will be over soon. One more night, then she puts an end to it. She can see the sea stretching out in front of her, feel the cold water lapping at her feet, her thighs. Her face.
Bus, train, tube. Whatever’s left of the fifty, she’ll spend on a one-way ticket to the coast, the short shingle beach at St Leonards where she went as a kid, her sister always close at her heels. The sea again, for one last time.
She won’t need a return.
YOU KILLED MY SON
YOU KILLED YOUR MUM
I WANT TO KILL YOU
Round and round the words dance in her head, flashing before her eyes. The notes arrived every now and again through the years. She kept them all, a little pile of loathing, though she knows every word by heart.
Shifting over in her bunk, moving from flat on her front to foetal position, she clutches her arms across her head.
The roll of cash digs into her breast again, reminding her of the final gift from Naomi as they hugged goodbye.
She digs into her bra, pulls out a twist of toilet paper stashed next to the cash.
In the middle of the wad of tissue, a pill that Naomi thrust into her hand.
You could do with a decent sleep on your last night, she muttered in Anna’s ear as she did so. No nightmares.
There’s only one thing that will stop them, though. This isn’t it. She should throw the pill away, flush it down the loo, hide it under the mattress – someone else’s escape.
But there’s so much to face tomorrow, so much to do. She’s so tired . . .
No more thinking. Not for now. Anna puts the pill in her mouth and, with an effort, swallows it down.