Quite Honestly

I really didn’t want to leave them, particularly as it now seemed I was going out into a world where I found it hard to remember what to do exactly. It was a question I hardly dared ask, let alone answer. Anyway, the goodbyes came first.

Devira gave me a handkerchief she had embroidered for me and held her hands together in what I supposed was a sort of blessing when I left her to her life sentence.

I promised Martine that I’d set about finding out where they’d put Nick, though I’d no idea how to do that or even where to begin. Of course I promised to write to her. ‘Hell’ the screw told me about all the good times I’d missed and the privileges I’d done without by not being a bit more cooperative, and I allowed her a kiss, strictly confined to my left cheekbone.

They were a bit slow in the office that morning and it took a long time to give me back the clothes I wore when I was arrested - the jeans and sweater and trainers which I’d put on to climb into Robin Thirkell’s house for the sake of excitement and the picture of Madame Bonnard drying herself after the bath.

And then the screw with the big jangling bunch of keys unlocked the door and let me out into an uncertain future with a travel warrant and £46.75 and not too much of a prospect of getting back to work in the advertising business.

It was a grey, damp morning early in the year and the traffic outside Holloway, after the calm silences of prison, sounded almost unbearably loud. I only had time for one quick look round before I saw him. I don’t know why but I found it irritating that he hadn’t changed at all. He still had dark curly hair and he’d fixed on a determinedly cheerful smile as he bore down on me.

‘What the hell,’ I asked him, ‘do you think you’re talking about, you know damn well who I am.’

‘But you don’t know who I am.’ He gave me the news as though he thought he was giving me good news. ‘I’m your praeceptor.’

‘Of course you know what a praeceptor is, you did Latin at school. It means I’m your guide, philosopher and friend, although Mr Markby warned me not to get too friendly, at least at first. I’m here to see you get a job, settle you back in the flat, see you never go inside that place again.’

‘Well, don’t bother!’ I felt I had to tell him. ‘Anyway, what’s Mr Markby got to do with it?’

‘He’s the new chair of SCRAP. I told you he got the job after Chippy did a great big runner. I was having a hard time getting a job on account of my record so he found me one at SCRAP. Paid praeceptor in charge of special cases. You’re one of them.’

‘Then go back to the Scrubs and help some other poor bugger. I don’t need your help now, Terry.’

‘You know perfectly well 85 per cent of prisoners reoffend within two years of their release. I’m going to help you stop that habit of stealing things.’

Just as he had once long ago, Terry looked surprised and pained as I said that. I know what he meant. Women weren’t meant to swear or do the burglaries, those were jobs for men. Terry’s male chauvinism was coming out again. This time, though, he was making a bit of an effort to control it.

‘All right then,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you feel, that’s all right. All I’d suggest is we do one thing together. If you don’t want to see me after that, I’ll piss off and leave you alone.’

‘One thing?’ I was extremely doubtful. Did he mean sex? What was this one thing?

‘I got up early to get here on time and I missed breakfast. Are you feeling hungry? What would you say to a burger?’

The rain was falling steadily and the traffic was even noisier. A crowd of children were running down the pavement on their way to school. I was facing a day with nothing much to do. Also I suddenly felt, having been too busy saying goodbye to eat breakfast, unexpectedly hungry. I looked at Terry and for another inexplicable moment I didn’t want to disappoint him.

There was a taxi passing and SCRAP must have been paying expenses because he stopped it.