The 20-stone prison officer eyed me as though I was lunch. She had a face like a bottled foetus that had escaped from its formaldehyde jar. ‘Youse just have to wait, like all the uvers.’ She emphasized her decision with a slam of the sliding window in front of her.
Roxy and I were standing outside Holloway women’s prison with a scrum of shivering people waiting for visits with loved ones. The prison had been home to feminists like Christabel Pankhurst and fascists like Diana Mosley. Moors murderer Myra Hindley was once incarcerated here, and five women were executed, including Ruth Ellis, their bodies buried within the prison walls in unmarked graves. Oscar Wilde was also interned here, obviously perceived as a woman by the judiciary. It was now also the temporary home of our client, Phyllis O’Carroll, infamous testicle markswoman.
‘But we are here for a legal visit,’ I said to the bulletproof glass. ‘We have priority.’ The warden just hunched down lower over the food she was eating in order to quicken its journey between plate and mouth. When she did glance up, I noted a speck of gravy in her eyebrow.
‘You’ve clearly never been to a prison before. Welcome to the wonderful world of legal aid. The prison staff are like snails with attitude,’ my mother commented drily.
‘It’d be faster to move things telekinetically.’ I banged on the warden’s window once more, to no avail.
‘Clearly, she’s not going to admit anybody until after lunch,’ said Roxy. ‘We might as well have a nosh as well.’
‘We have an appointment!’ I waved our authorization documentation at the officer, who showed me no more concern than she would a gnat.
Roxy checked her watch. ‘With no mood swings at Security, it should only be about another, oh, hour and a half before we get in.’
‘That’s outrageous! It’s freezing out here.’ While I continued to thump the window and make blustery, barrister-type noises, my mother crossed the road to a greasy-spoon café, the sort of eatery that serves salmonella on toast. She returned shortly afterwards and thrust a cardboard container at me. ‘Jellied eels. A North London delicacy. Would you like a bite?’
‘Sure . . . If I wasn’t worried about an imminent attack of death.’
‘It was quite clean, actually, for a greasy spoon.’
‘Oh, what? The cockroaches were wearing hair nets?’ I whiffed the grey slime on offer.
‘It’s better than the food in prison,’ Roxy said. ‘Last week, an inmate got hit in the face with a piece of mincemeat. Some of it got in her mouth and she died instantly. The food’s so bad, if there’s dental floss in the cells, the mice hang themselves.’ She plonked herself down on the grassy bank in a patch of watery January sunshine by the bustling Seven Sisters Road, then pulled her miniskirt a little lower on her chubby thighs.
‘Mother, now you’re in your fifties, do you think it might be time to lower your hems just a little? I mean, just to ensure that whenever you sit down complete strangers don’t cop an eyeful of your primary sex organs?’
‘Well, at least mine are in use.’ She patted a patch of grass next to her. ‘There is life after marriage, you know, Tilly. Is there still no man on your hormonal horizon, hon?’
I would have said no, but I was concentrating on manoeuvring myself on to the grass next to my more agile mother – except the grass was slippery and wet and I was in heels . . . which is why I heard his voice before I saw him. After I had slid rather spectacularly down the slimy slope as though I were wearing invisible skis, his calm, reassuring voice was asking me if I was okay. I opened my eyes to say hello – to his feet first (brown, scuffed biker boots), then his legs (strong, muscular, encased in faded blue denim), followed by a big hello to his bulge (he’d obviously thoughtfully packed lunch for two). My eyes then travelled upwards across a tight abdomen and then further up to a chest broad enough to be rented out for advertising space. And then on up into an amused face. The glint in his eye couldn’t just be because of my comedic topple down the embankment, because his mouth was bracketed by deeply etched smile lines.
‘S–s–sorry, I’ve been a little sleep deprived since the baby was born.’
‘Sure. No problem.’ He offered his hand to pull me up. ‘How old is your baby?’
‘Twelve,’ I answered.
The tall, tousled stranger smiled at me and I felt as though I’d passed some kind of minor test. As he gently hauled me to my feet, I took note of the remnants of a summer tan which was so lightly toffee-coloured I felt the urge to lick it. As he held my shoulders to steady me, I caught an aroma of limes and salt and possibly cinnamon.
Now that I was face to face with him, I could see that he had inquisitive eyes, a mane of gold-flecked hair and an aquiline nose which gave him the look of a Roman god. I controlled an overwhelming urge to cry ‘Take me to Apollo!’ His caramel skin and hazel eyes fringed with curly eyelashes made him centrefold handsome, in a slightly bohemian, aristocratic, world-weary way.
‘Why thank you, kind sir,’ I said in my friendly, flirty voice, which sounded slightly false from disuse. It was a ridiculously Jane Austenesque comment, since my dress was covered in grass stains, my knees were smeared in dirt and I possibly had dog turd in my hair.
The stranger then did the most surprising thing. He kissed my hand. Or, rather, breathed hotly on to it, head slightly bowed. The Sir Lancelot gesture made me laugh out loud, but it was also irrationally pleasing.
‘Sorry. But you don’t often encounter behaviour like that on the capital’s prison forecourts.’ I laughed, a little flustered.
‘Sometimes I forget to hide my dark secret – a private-school past. Bryanston . . . Alternative boarding school for pampered poshies,’ he explained, in case I didn’t know. ‘I think I saw you the other day. On the Tony Benn Estate.’ He looked me up and down, quite slowly. ‘Not your natural habitat, I’d say.’
‘Absolutely. My mother says that a London council estate is not a good place to go if you have money, jewellery or a vagina on you. Oops.’ The man had so unnerved me that the words had just blurted out of my mouth. Why did I only ever feel in control in court? I needed my wig and gown urgently. Perhaps I could have them surgically attached? But the glance he gave me was amused and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little titillated.
The stranger then dusted off my knees – an activity which sent electric currents from my tonsils to my toes . . . and quite a few places in between. He next bent to pick up a motorcycle helmet, giving me a ringside view of his tightly muscled rear. I watched as he wiped grass off his hands on to the back of his jeans. Oh, lucky hands, I thought. He gave a warm smile, his whole face in it, especially his eyes. The smile made me want to touch his arm – or, better still, slide my hand over the delicious contours of his derrière.
He straddled a motorbike, which spluttered into life and vroomed away while he was still adjusting his helmet strap with one hand. As he was giving me an insouciant wave with the other hand, it could mean only one thing – he was steering with his genitalia.
‘Yowzah!’ my mother commented as the pulchritudinous Good Samaritan departed. ‘At the very least, I’d like to pash that man until there was nothing left but his helmet. How hot was he?’
‘Really? I didn’t notice.’
My mother raised a dubious brow. ‘Tilly, if you were a dog, you’d have been sitting on your hindquarters and hanging your tongue out.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Roxy. He saw me on the estate. He’s obviously some drug-dealer pimp type visiting one of his upper-class hookers in Holloway.’
‘Then why are you beaming?’
‘I’m not beaming.’
‘Darl, you’re smiling so hard you look as though you’ve just had a B12 vitamin shot.’
‘I am not!’ But, in truth, the thought of the stranger’s smile stayed in my mind for a long time . . . even while we were being fingerprinted, frisked and bustled through metal detectors. (Please note that if you can’t afford a doctor, go on a prison visit. You’ll get a free X-ray and breast exam and, if you mention drugs in any way, a complimentary cervical smear test, too.)
As we handed over our shoes, phones and ID, I took in my surroundings. Everything seemed to be made not just of polyester, but imitation polyester. The prison smelt sour, like stale daylight trapped for decades until it has gone rancid. It wafted over me like bad BO seeping out of armpits in summer on the Tube. As we moved from the holding pen deeper into the prison, the whole place reeked of mourning, ghosts and desperation.
Another gargantuan officer led us in silence to a large room partitioned off into glass cubicles. She adjusted her underwear with a thumb and a wiggle of her opulent backside, then pointed to one of the small rooms. Phyllis was wedged into a chair that was nailed to the floor. As was the table. She looked as though she’d been plunked down on a planet to which she was not native. Her grey hair was strangled into a tight ponytail. Her skin and lips were gravestone grey.
‘So the food hasn’t killed you yet?’ My mother’s voice was sympathetic but also robust and unpatronizing. ‘What did you have for lunch? Cup o’ Crap or sweet-and-sour stray cat?’
‘Somethin’ like it, pet!’ Phyllis’s forced good cheer was painful in its transparency. She was giving a very good impression of a duck’s back.
‘Phizz is a very good cook, you know,’ my mother told me. ‘She’s addicted to those daytime-telly cookery shows. MasterChef, The Great British Bake Off . . .’
‘I am a bit partial to a drizzle of balsamic,’ Phyllis said. ‘You gotta get me out of ’ere, for the sake of me tastebuds alone,’ she bluffed, adding eagerly, ‘’Ave you seen my Chanty?’
‘Yes,’ my mother reassured her, in a voice as composed and calm as a hotel receptionist’s. ‘She’s on the mend.’
And then Phyllis smiled. A genuine smile. This smile was like the front door of an old house opening, disused with rusty hinges.
‘And I will reunite you very soon.’ Roxy smoothed the old woman down as though she were a crumpled bedspread. ‘But let’s talk about your defence first, shall we?’
‘The poxy scum deserved it.’
‘I know,’ Roxy agreed. ‘Kill one man and you’re a murderer. Kill a million and you’re a conquering heroine . . . Boudi-bloody-cca.’
I eyeballed my mother. This did not seem the most promising strategical tack, so I took over.
‘Like Roxy, you’re a woman of many convictions, Phyllis. Let’s just not make them all criminal. Okay?’ My pathetic attempt at a little ice-breaking humour fell completely flat.
‘An eye for an eye,’ Phyllis stated grimly.
‘Unfortunately, righteous indignation is not a defence,’ I told her.
‘Listen carefully, Phyllis,’ Roxy interrupted. ‘As I understand, you went around there with a firearm to protect yourself while you warned them not to say one denigrating word about your granddaughter. But you had no intention of using the firearm, did you?’
‘Yeah I did—’
‘Hold on. Let me finish . . . But when you got there, Stretch opened the door and yelled something abusive at you. Isn’t it then that you felt under threat?’ Roxy prompted.
Phyllis shook her head, bemused.
‘Some threat was made to you, so you had to defend yourself. Did you feel under threat, Phyllis?’
Phyllis was looking intently at Roxy.
‘You were so frightened you pulled the trigger—’
‘They don’t frighten me, those evil knobheads.’
Roxy and I exchanged exasperated glances. My mother extracted a cigarette packet secreted in some fold of her vast bra. Over the next hour, I wrung from Phyllis every minute detail of the night she shot the rapists: the exact time she drove her battered bomb of a car to the estate to snap photos of the culprits on Chantelle’s mobile; the exact moment she showed the photos to Chantelle for verification; where she got the gun; how long it took her to get back to the council estate . . .
My mother smoked continuously throughout until I begged her to desist. ‘Roxy, can you please stop dropping cigarette butts on the prison floor?’
My mother raised a puzzled brow, looking around the small, grimy room. ‘You’re worried about mess? In this cesspit?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘No, I’m worried the rats are getting cancer.’ I coughed dramatically. ‘You’re asphyxiating me. You’re not allowed to smoke. There’s a sign.’ I pointed to the huge printed instruction on the wall behind us.
My mother responded with a wink and a blast of smoke in my face. ‘I’m shortsighted.’
After another half an hour of passive smoke-inhalation and frantic note-taking, the prison officer waddled over to announce that it was 3 p.m. and visiting time was up. ‘But you kept us waiting outside for at least an hour,’ I complained.
The prison officer’s yawn was like that of a hippopotamus in a watering hole. ‘And you kept me cravin’ a smoke for the last hour,’ she rasped.
My mother took the hint and gave the smuggled cigarette packet to the officer. People were shuffling out of their individual cubicles into the long, bare room. Some visitors were weeping, others swearing. The guards, oblivious, herded them all together. Inmates and their guards did have one thing in common though. Immense bottoms. It looked as though everyone in the place had stuffed two watermelons down their trousers.
The fluorescent light above us was intermittent, the bulb buzzing on and off like a trapped blowfly. Phyllis, who had been calm throughout the visit, seized my arm. ‘The estate’s bad enough, but I reckon the drugs in ’ere are worse. These girls need help. Coke is called medicine. “J’have my medicine?” they keep sayin’. You’ve gotta get me out. Those poxy rapists ’ave a lotta mates in ’ere. I don’t feel safe.’ The old lady had gone as limp as a perm in a sauna.
Whereas my biggest fear is being trapped in a lift with a Scientologist, poor Phyllis was at the mercy of vicious inmates and unpredictable wardens. Holloway Prison is clearly full of the kind of people Jerry Springer could build an entire series around.
As we rose to leave, Phyllis clutched Roxy’s arm with a trembling, arthritic claw. ‘I’m scared, Roxy. Please, please, in the name of Jesus, get me outta ’ere.’ Her face was so drawn it seemed to be melting.
‘What the hell’s that on your arm, love?’ Roxy pushed up the sleeves of the old lady’s cardigan to reveal a bracelet of bruises on both forearms.
‘Oh, this one woman, she keeps tauntin’ me all the time. Shovin’ me round an’ that. I can take it, meself. But I won’t let ’em say one bad word about my Chanty! I won’t! . . . I won’t!!’
I understood Phyllis’s desire to have the last word. I just prayed it wouldn’t be on her epitaph.
‘The bail appeal hearing’s scheduled for next week,’ Roxy reassured her with a pat on her back. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, Phizz.’
Phyllis returned the ghost of a smile.
My mother and I walked in silence back towards the daylight. The steel prison gates wheezed open with a death rattle, then slammed shut again behind us. And still we said nothing, because both of us knew that everything was about as fine as the grey drizzle which had set low over London. Phyllis might as well have been swimming in shark-infested waters with a gaping leg wound. As usual, Roxy and I had ended up testing the depth of the legal waters – with both feet.