I found most of the women I was meeting in my regular Substance Misuse Clinic fascinating. Trudy was no exception.
For years, Trudy had managed to hold down a full-time job as a housekeeper, alongside maintaining a serious heroin addiction. She’d looked after the luxurious homes of an immensely wealthy Middle Eastern family, and for decades she stayed out of trouble, working long hours and keeping up the pretence that all was okay when really she was crumbling inside.
It was her first time in prison, and as she sat in the chair in my little room, I could see the relief on her face. Her tired, frail body almost melted into the seat with liberation, but her eyes were flat and emotionless, as if she had used up all her tears long, long ago.
She was in her mid-forties, but looked older. Her skin was blotchy and flaky around her nose. Her hair was dark and straggly and going grey. Her voice was husky from cigarettes, and she coughed harshly.
‘I can relax now,’ she said, smiling wearily.
It was still a strange thing to hear – that being in prison was better than being free, but it was something I had heard before so many times it no longer surprised me. I suppose being addicted to drugs had been a life sentence in itself for her.
And then she said something that left an impression on me. There was no window in my room, but Trudy gazed ahead, wistfully, as if she was imagining the most beautiful of views.
‘I just want to live abroad, on a boat. I don’t want anything else.’
Her words reminded me of the seascape that used to hang in my surgery, with a couple relaxing in the sunshine, looking out across a beautiful deep blue sea. When I felt like the world had got on top of me, I used to stare at that picture and wish I could just step into the frame, like Mary Poppins did in the film.
‘Don’t we all?’ I smiled back.
She told me that she used drugs primarily to obliterate the memories of her abuse.
‘At first my partner would make sure he hit me where no one would see. He would smack me in the stomach. The ribs. I was working with three broken ribs at one point.’
‘He would hit me across my back with anything he could get his hands on, sometimes even the frying pan, or the saucepan.
‘But the longer I was with him the less he cared about what people thought, so he started punching me in the face.’
‘Oh goodness,’ I sighed.
‘I got good at using make-up. Concealer around my eyes, lots of foundation.
‘It didn’t really cover the black eyes, but nobody said anything to me. You wouldn’t, would you? And a lot of the time my employers weren’t living in the houses; they were abroad while I looked after them.’
She paused, suddenly considering what she’d just admitted. She frowned, crossing her arms defensively. ‘I never stole from them if that’s what you’re thinking. Never once. I wouldn’t do that. I was working all those hours so I could pay for myself.’
I quickly intervened. ‘That’s not what I’m thinking, Trudy. And I want you to know, I’m not here to judge you.’
She softened. ‘I know, Doc. You seem like a good sort. I just didn’t want you to think badly of me.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ I smiled. It was funny how many of the women in Bronzefield seemed much more concerned about how I viewed them than the men in the Scrubs had been. I wondered if that sometimes had something to do with them needing me more, emotionally.
‘So how did you end up with such a horrible partner? Did you try to leave him?’
‘So many times, so many I lost count!’ She spat the words out of her mouth.
‘But he threatened to kill me if I left, and I was scared. By the end I’d given up, it was easier not to fight him any more. There was also a part of me that thought I couldn’t do any better. He’d ground my confidence down so much, over the years. When I looked in the mirror I hated myself . . .’ Trudy’s voice started to wobble. Her face tensed.
‘I hated my hair, my face, my body. I looked old and tired and covered in bruises, and who would want to be with someone who looked like that?’
She looked directly at me with sad, sad eyes. ‘Who would want me?’
It was heartrending.
She wouldn’t be the first woman afraid to be alone. Glancing back to Trudy’s notes, it looked as if she had grown up around abuse. But I didn’t need to ask. Trudy was a clever woman, and had already processed her reasons for putting up with the beatings.
‘I suppose I knew no better. My dad was an alcoholic. He used to do a right number on my mum, couldn’t even recognise her after he was done with her. He tried drowning her, he beat her with a poker, it was horrendous. And when he wasn’t beating her, he would rape her in front of me and my sisters. He tried to kill my mum four times before she left him.’
What can you say to something like that? It was so far removed from the happy family life I’d grown up with. It’s horrible to think that while you’re getting hugs from your mum and your dad, someone somewhere else is watching their mum being beaten within a breath of her life. But that is life. And thanks to working in prisons, I finally had my eyes opened to what really goes on out there.
‘It didn’t stop there,’ Trudy explained. ‘Mum remarried not long after. She thought she had a good man in Carl, but he turned out to be just as bad as my dad. I was four when he first started touching me.’
‘Oh, Trudy.’ I shook my head in despair.
‘Yeah, it was pretty bad, but I didn’t know any better, you know? And my mum thought everything was okay because when I went up to bed I’d say, “Goodnight dad”, as if he was my real father. As if I was happy.
‘It was my fault for not speaking up.’
I quickly cut in. ‘It wasn’t your fault. You were only a child.’
Trudy pulled her sleeves over her hands, nervously.
‘I should have told her, but I really thought it was normal. I thought rape, and violence, was just how families were.
‘It moved from touching to full sex and I begged him to stop because he was hurting me. That’s when he turned violent. He would hit me and threaten me. He said for every time I tried to stop him, he would beat my mum.’
Her voice cracked. ‘What could I do?
‘So I just let him.’
She looked down at her hands, tugged her sleeves, fighting the fabric that wouldn’t stretch any further.
And then, with venom in her eyes, she said, ‘When he was bored of me, he started bringing his friends around.’
Horrified, I clutched my hand over my mouth.
‘He kept me off school so his friends could come over when my mum was out. She was working three jobs to keep us all.
‘They took it in turns.’ She paused. Then, her voice so low, so dead, she said, ‘They all had a go, Doc.’ She snorted. ‘Well, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’
She shrugged and stared at the ground.
‘Did you ever have counselling?’ I asked.
‘Nah.’
‘Did you ever tell anyone what happened to you?’
‘Yeah,’ she replied, with disdain. ‘I told my ex, the fella who beat me up for all those years. I was high one night, and feeling vulnerable, and finally opened up to him. I thought he would be there for me.’
‘But he wasn’t?’
‘Was he hell! He just used it against me. Every time I ran away after he beat me up, he threatened that if I didn’t come back, he would tell my sister that her dad was a paedophile. I didn’t want to hurt my sister, because Carl had never touched her. I was terrified she wouldn’t want to know me any more, and she was pretty much all the family I had left.
‘And do you know the worst bit of it all is, Doc?’ Trudy said.
‘It wasn’t the beatings, it wasn’t the abuse. It was the fact that later in life, my mum got back together with my real dad. I was so angry we had gone through all of that pain and abuse for nothing.
‘Nothing!’ She spat out the words
We both sat in silence for a moment. I could see there was still a lot of hurt and anger buried within Trudy.
‘Are you still with your partner now?’ I asked.
‘No, I finally left him. I also found the courage to tell my mum what happened to me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She just feels really guilty. Says she didn’t know, but I think she didn’t want to see it. I don’t hate her for it, though. I understand she was abused too.’
She fell silent for a moment, looking off to one side, thinking. Then, the last thing I would have ever have imagined: a huge smile spread across her face.
‘The most wonderful thing is that I finally found love. Real love. I have hope of a future. I’m so pleased to be in prison. To have a chance to get clean. I know you won’t believe me, Doc, but I’m happy to be in here. I can stop pretending. It’s over.’
She shook her head and said it again. ‘It’s over.’
That same look of relief Trudy had when she first sat down, washed back over her. She stopped tugging at her sleeves, she stopped scowling – her body relaxing.
‘This is my chance to get myself off the drugs. To get me back.
‘Will you help me Doc?’
It was music to my ears. ‘Of course I will. How long do we have?’
‘Eighteen months. I was using so much I’d got myself into debt, and I ended up dealing because I couldn’t face the alternative.’
I knew what she was going say.
‘I take my hat off to the girls who sell their bodies, but I couldn’t do it. Not after everything I’d been through. I just couldn’t.’
I nodded understandingly. I knew the story only too well.
‘Yeah, hats off to them, but I couldn’t.’
I began tapping away on my keyboard. ‘So what are we going to do with your methadone?’
Before coming into prison, Trudy had been on a 70ml script, and was using heroin on top of that. Clearly, she had a big habit. We agreed a slow detox plan, as she had plenty of time. I also reassured her that if she was struggling at any point we could slow things down even further.
Trudy nodded politely. ‘I was hoping you would say that. I don’t want to do it fast. I have over a year to get off it.’
As she got up to leave, she suddenly remembered something.
‘I almost forgot!’ Trudy exclaimed. ‘I’m seeing a psychiatrist and she has diagnosed me with post traumatic stress. I’m going to a trauma group every Friday. It’s nice because there are other ladies in there who have been through similar stuff to me.’
‘I am so happy for you, Trudy,’ I smiled.
‘A lot of people used to come to me with their problems, because I’m an easy-going person. I talk to anyone. I listen. Now, finally, it’s me that’s getting some help,’ she said,
Suddenly, she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around me. In that brief moment that we hugged I could feel the happiness pour out of her. It was sad that Trudy saw prison as her only sanctuary, but at the same time I could see determination in her eyes – something I’m sure she wouldn’t have had if she hadn’t been sentenced to Bronzefield.
‘You’re such a lovely person,’ I said. ‘It’s incredible how you functioned through all that horrific abuse, and the thought of you ending up on a lovely little boat somewhere fills me with joy.’
Trudy burst into laughter. ‘I can see myself diving for shellfish. A little dog sitting on the end of the boat.’ Flashing me a smile, she added, ‘And my hunky man on the beach, fixing things.’
She carried that smile with her out of my door, and I was left feeling hopeful, too. I had over a year to help Trudy wean herself off methadone and, combined with the counselling, there was every chance she could leave Bronzefield with no drugs in her system, and no desire to go back on them when she returned to society. It was my goal to make her dream become a reality.
It was at that moment, that very second, that I realised I had reached my happy place. I had never had so much job satisfaction in all of my life. My journey to get there had been colourful, but I couldn’t have been more fulfilled.
I felt and hoped that I was making a difference to these women’s lives, which gave me joy and a sense of purpose. And as long as I was needed, and I was making a difference, I would carry on working as doctor, as a counsellor and also, hopefully, as a friend to these women.
There was a knock on my door. A nurse popped her head in. The screaming, the shouting, the swearing from the prisoners outside, came in with her.
‘I’ve got your next patient here, Doc,’ she said.
I smiled. ‘Show her in.’