Chapter 2
Shit. It’s not working. Her mind’s racing now, not quietened. Serves her right, trying to outrun the thoughts that hound her. What was it, anyway? She didn’t ask, assuming it was a sleeping pill. Maybe it wasn’t.
Anna had always said no when Naomi had offered them in the past. She didn’t deserve the peace, fleeting as it might be. Besides, she’s found herself out of bed too many times, stuck in a nightmare, hands raw from pounding against the door.
Sedatives can’t stop that. They might even make it worse.
One night, she woke to see Naomi pacing the room, folding and refolding her clothes in a pile, until she lay down abruptly on top of them and fell asleep.
When Anna asked her what she was doing, she got no response – and Naomi had no memory of it in the morning, either.
Anna doesn’t take risks like that anymore.
She knows what happens when she loses control.
So stupid of her to swallow it down. The voice in her head is chirping at her again – Let this be a lesson to you. All she wants is for it to stop, but she can’t make it quiet, can’t make it go away, louder and louder and louder it grows . . .
Until it’s gone, drowned out by waves of calm. Anna’s brain is slowing in real time, pulse after long pulse as the sounds disappear behind a wall of water, slower and slower. Sleep is pulling at her, small hands tugging her down. Her eyes close, her breathing deepens . . .
‘You’re sleeping in here,’ a voice says, jerking her awake. She doesn’t know how much later it is.
Anna stirs. The background noises in the building around her have merged into a dull roar, but not this. It’s immediate, as if someone is in the cell, the door clanging open. She rolls over, opens an eye. It’s bright, not dark anymore. Someone is in the cell.
‘This is your bunk. Not much, but maybe it’s better than the streets.’
It’s an officer speaking. The shock of the light is harsh and yellow, dazzling Anna.
She squints but can’t make out the features of the woman who shuffles in past the officer and sits down heavily on the side of the bottom bunk, her hair across her face.
She’s sobbing quietly, her breath catching with an edge that jags at Anna, hooks into her.
‘Get some sleep now,’ the officer says, her voice almost kind. ‘It’ll seem better in the morning.’
‘There’s someone else in here already.’ The woman’s voice is soft, emerging through the sobs.
‘She’s being released first thing. She won’t bother you.’
‘When will I get my methadone? I need the prescription.’
‘In the morning. The doctor will definitely be in then.’
‘They should have been there tonight.’
‘I know, but there it is,’ the officer says.
No reply. The light goes off and the door slams behind the officer, the click of the lock loud, echoing throughout the cell. Silence descends, a moment of calm before the noises of the wing start up again.
Are you all right? What’s your name? Were you waiting in reception long before they processed you?
The questions Anna could ask rise half-formed in her mind but she can’t speak them.
She’s trapped somewhere under warm waves lulling her to sleep, spinning her in their riptide.
She can’t offer any help, any comfort to this poor woman.
The tranquilliser is working its magic. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around her now, how much pain there is.
Anna is floating off away from it, out of any control.
Another sob; a long, broken breath. The air in the cell calms, less prickly than it was before. It sounds like the woman is unpacking, getting her stuff in order as much as she can in the twilight of the cell.
A long sniff, then, ‘Is there a toilet?’
Anna opens her mouth to reply but the words don’t come out.
She can’t make her tongue work, can’t form the words.
She wants to say, It’s at the end of the cell, or at least to roll over and point to the metal toilet bolted to the floor.
She can’t. It’ll be obvious soon enough, though, behind its inadequate screen.
The reek of bleach and ammonia cuts through even the depths of Anna’s torpor.
The woman stands up, the bunk beds shifting with the movement, and for a moment Anna senses her presence beside the top bunk, her eyes burning through the blanket that’s covers Anna’s head.
Then footsteps, slow and heavy, to the back of the cell.
There’s the sound of the removal of clothes. And something else. A rustling noise.
Water hitting water now, the flush, and the steps shuffle back to the bunk before she subsides on to it heavily. She’s not sobbing anymore, but her breathing is laboured, the harsh inhalations reverberating around the cell.
‘It’s me. I’m on remand. I’ve been staying at the Jericho hostel but I got nicked in the Westgate Shopping Centre. I guess it was always going to happen.’ A hoarse whisper. Her voice is so bleak that it cuts through Anna’s haze. Freezing cold water floods through the warm waves.
She’s not talking to Anna. She’s talking to someone else. The rustling. She must have brought something in, contraband hidden up inside herself that the strip search didn’t find.
A phone.
Crying again, smaller sobs, broken as she struggles for breath.
‘I know what you said,’ the woman says. ‘But I can’t bear it. I need to know she’s OK.’ Her voice rises. Anna tries to stay motionless. There’s a clicking noise coming from the phone, the distant sound of someone speaking, though Anna can’t make out the words.
‘Someone in the hostel gave it to me. What does it matter how I got the phone in here? Is everything all right?’
More crying. More clicking.
‘What do you mean, never again? You can’t do that. It’ll break her. She’s my mother.’
The clicks rise in volume, sharp staccatos of sound.
‘So I can’t even contact you? I thought I could trust you.’
A long pause. More indistinct words in reply.
‘I won’t let you do this.’
Silence. No clicking.
‘Leave her alone. I’m begging you. Help me . . . Why won’t anyone help me?’
Clicking. A pause. Then a thump, the phone hitting the concrete floor.
‘I’ve lost everything now. My poor Louise . . .’ Her voice trails into nothing.
Quiet now. Only ragged sobs. Anna can’t hold her breath anymore, exhaling as quietly as possible. She’s desperate for sleep, to shut everything out. She feels herself caught in the current of this woman’s despair. It’s unbearable.
The woman keeps crying, quietly now. Not for long though – soon the sobs from the bunk below subside, and the pill begins to work its full magic for Anna, smoothing down the jagged edges.
Sleep.