39

So there I was, waiting outside the gates of Holloway Prison quite early one grey morning with the rain coming down. And then I saw her coming towards me, not much changed, I have to admit, but a bit paler. People coming out of prison always seem paler than those of us on the outside, but still her, still how she was when she left the dock after she turned her back on me. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. As Mr Markby said, ‘To be honest, our job’s never easy.’ She didn’t look at all pleased to see me.

‘You must be Lucy Purefoy,’ I said. I thought she might see the joke. I thought she might remember how she greeted me when she was waiting for me outside the Scrubs what seemed like all those years ago. She either didn’t see it or wasn’t in the mood for laughter. ‘You know damn well who I am,’ was what she said.

Then I explained to her about Mr Markby. How he’d given me the job at SCRAP and got me to be paid wages so I could give all my time to it and not be tempted to reoffend. So I’d tried to help a collection of poor old sods and cocky youths who came out of prison with nothing much provided for them. And then he told me he had this in mind for me, to take Lucy on as a special case. He was impressed by my determination to cure her of the criminal habits she’d got herself into. Well, I told her I was the praeceptor now, her guide, philosopher and friend.

You know, she didn’t take it well. But I suppose, to be honest, I didn’t take it well when she said she was going to get me to go straight when we first met outside the Scrubs. But so much had happened between us since then that I sort of hoped she’d have been thinking about that and changed her attitude.

No way, in fact no way at all. She said she didn’t need my help. Then she actually asked if I planned to reform her. I had to admit that she could say that. It was then she told me to fuck off. It’s true I didn’t like hearing her say that, just as I don’t like the idea of women doing serious crimes. It doesn’t suit women somehow, at least that’s the way I look at it. I still expect women to be feminine, if you know what I mean. I think it suits them better.

But I didn’t get anywhere with her. ‘Never lose your temper with a client,’ Mr Markby had told me. ‘Never give him, or her, that particular satisfaction.’ I’d gone to all sorts of lectures and meetings at SCRAP, I’d read books and magazines about the aftercare of criminals to help me in my new work, and in particular for the job which had brought me to the gate of Holloway, all to be told to fuck off. This would have made me very angry if I hadn’t followed Mr Markby’s advice.

So, instead of telling Lucy what I thought of her, I suddenly had a new idea. I told her that if she really felt like that I’d piss off and leave her alone. But I felt we ought to do just one thing together before that was decided on.

Of course she thought I meant sex but I didn’t mean that at all. At SCRAP they made it clear that the praeceptor mustn’t have sex with the client. Well, not during the reforming process anyway. So, instead of any talk about sex, and remembering how we first met, I told her I hadn’t had breakfast, which was nothing but the truth, and if she was at all hungry, what about a hamburger.

She thought about it and I was anxious, much too anxious, about how she’d take to this suggestion. In the end she said, ‘If you mean just one hamburger.’

‘Just one,’ I said. ‘But a whopper!’

So there it was. It was a start. I had money for expenses and a taxi was crawling by in the rain so I flicked my fingers and we set off towards Notting Hill and the Burger King. At least we were together.

And that’s where this story begins again.