Extract from Ink

Geves Lafosse

Joe hung himself in his cell on a bleak August morning. Everyone knew he was high risk, and they were supposed to be watching him. A report might pinpoint failed procedures and changes proposed, but then everyone would forget. Today, nothing could alter the fact that Joe was dead. He was twenty-one.

Words and images in petrol colours bloomed from the skin of Joe’s throat and uncoiled over his face and head. Cascading the length of his arms were the addict’s track mark scars which ended, shockingly, in the slender fingers of a pianist. Joe’s body had been loud, but at our first meeting he was mute. Then he started to write. I submitted the pages for an Art in Prison award and when he won, the lashes of his little-boy eyes spiked with tears. He pulled a tin from his grey tracksuit, and I watched a square of thin paper and threads of tobacco become a small cigarette which he placed with reverence on the desk in front of him. Now I pictured those same hands tearing a bedsheet into lengths to lash to his window bars.

One of the older screws came to the Education Office to let us know, sorrow pasted onto his craggy face. The Maths teacher tried to put her arm around me. ‘Your star student,’ she said, ‘and now he’s in the stars.’ To quash the image of my bunched fist hitting her cheek, I took myself to the photocopying room and printed warm, pigment-sweet materials for my class. I was creating neat piles of these when someone came in. 

‘Sad news, Iona, but are you still alright to do the writing workshop? I’d rather not cancel it.’ Usually my manager’s voice was Edinburgh, genial, emanating from a form softened by many pregnancies. Today, her impatience prickled like static. 

‘It’s fine, Helen,’ I said. ‘I’ll manage.’ Because life goes on, I thought. Unless it doesn’t. 

‘This is your first prison death, is it not?’ she said. ‘If you stick it out, it won’t be your last.’ She placed a manicured hand briefly on the rough beige wool of my sweater before walking off, her assured steps echoing down the concrete corridor.

I tucked the printouts under my arm. That way I’d have two hands to dig keys from the black leather pouch around my waist. There were nine locked gates and doors between the Education wing and the library, and I knew this because I’d counted them. 

When I first arrived here twelve months ago, the act of holding keys and locking doors had felt alien, sharply delineating my freedom, and the inmates’ lack of it. I thought of the person I was then, running from my own trauma list into a vault of other people’s. I must have seemed a manic, middle-class oddity but after a few weeks, the prisoners’ hostile stares gave way to small confidences, and then, through the writing, to open-hearted disclosures of all they had lived. Some of their stories made me weep. I’d taken for granted the simple hope of a better future for these inmates. With the brightest of them now dead, I felt stupidly naïve.

I sat in the library, beside the rows of real-life crime paperbacks that were amongst the most browsed and most borrowed of all our books, trying not to cry. I’d shed tears in this spot many times, listening. If they noticed, the men grinned and called me “soppy.” It became their custom at the start of every session to ask, “Whose poem’s gunna make Miss blub today?” It took new members a couple of weeks to see the joke. I wasn’t expecting jokes this morning.

 They straggled in and took their seats, leaving Joe’s favourite chair empty at the end of the table. The men were always distinct units of the tension they brought from their respective wings, until the writing unravelled it, but today they were unusually quiet, watching me rather than indulging in the testosterone-fuelled joshing with one another to which we were all used.

I scanned the turned faces, pulling my mouth into a smile. ‘How are you all doing?’ I said.

The skinny young man beside me had clearly taken blunt scissors to his hair since last time. Uneven tufts now covered his head. ‘Did ye hear Miss, Joe’s gone an’ topped himself.’

‘I know, Ross’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry.’ I squared my papers on the desk, not trusting my voice to say anything else. 

Angus occupied the table’s middle seat, like the Prime Minister in cabinet. He was a lot older than the others, and Joe had liked him. From the earliest sessions I asked the inmates to use my first name. Most of them couldn’t get past “Miss,” but Angus was like someone’s grandfather and the only one who called me “Iona.” He was also the group’s barometer, and at the moment he projected nonchalance. 

‘Fuckin’ jail,’ he said. ‘’Scuse my language but it drives us all round the bend, bein’ locked up, no seeing our families ‘n that.’

‘I’m really sorry.’ What else could I say? I knew Angus was no angel and nor were the others, but I was sorry they had lives where crime was the norm, sorry to be part of a society that failed them as children, and sorry that I had the privilege of freedom while they did not. ‘I’m going to miss Joe,’ I said. Trite. And the truth. 

‘Aye,’ said Angus. ‘Stupid wee bawbag. Sorry Iona.’

Ross gave a liquid sniff. ‘I’d hug you, Miss,’ he said, ‘but you know I cannae.’ 

‘Thanks, Ross.’ I smiled at him, and glanced to the other side of the room. An officer sat with his back to the wall, meaty hands holding the limp pages of a red-top daily paper. He did not look up. 

‘Brew, anyone?’ It was against the rules. Off their wings, the prison didn’t trust them with hot water and mugs, any more than they trusted them with sharp scissors, pens or workshop tools, but I’d seen other civilian staff make drinks. Angus waited at the kitchen door and helped me carry the cups. I put one in front of the officer, who pursed his lips, but thanked me.

The inmates spooned sugar into their drinks from the bag I’d put on the table. I knew most of them would rather have had an extra gym session than be in a creative writing group, because they’d told me. My response was that I’d signed up to teach Art but got collared to do twice weekly writing instead, so we were even. Gym slots were rare. They were acquired from other prisoners through fair means, or foul, because having muscle in prison could unpin the target on your back.

The men moved slowly. I’d seen this sluggish mood before. Sometimes it happened when there was bad news from home or worse, no news. Sometimes there’d been an incident on the wing with one of the weekend officers. The men never shared details of these when there was a screw reading The Sun a few feet away. Today was different. Today death sat in Joe’s empty chair, and I didn’t know whether to acknowledge or ignore it.

‘Memory,’ I said, my voice unnaturally high. ‘I thought we could do an exercise called “Being Seven.” Where were you when you were seven years old? What can you see? What did you hear, smell, feel and taste at that age?’ I gave them a few minutes to write down some thoughts.

The exercise had always worked as an icebreaker. The reduction to childhood seemed to free them. Often there was laughter at the shared memory of a gleaming shell suit, or a particular cartoon, but then I remembered times when the writing had opened some darker places. “Why did you do it, Miss?” an old group member had once asked. “I just don’t want to remember any of it.” 

I pushed a pile of laminated photographs towards the middle of the table. ‘But if anyone would rather use a prompt, there are plenty here.’

Ross sniffed again. ‘I’m just gunna write a letter, Miss.’

‘That’s fine too.’ 

I took a picture from the pile. Since the earliest days of the workshop, I had written alongside the men. Collaborator felt comfortable, teacher did not. I held the image in my hand. It was of a street scene in fifties New York in which a well-dressed woman looked greedily at a jewellery shop display. The composition left my imagination cold.

 Some way down the table a man cleared his throat. ‘Ah dinnae understand why Joe did it. He never said he was gunna.’ It was Craig, a compact, ruddy-faced and red-haired young man who rarely made eye contact. His hands were spread uneasily on the table. ‘An’ ma mate on C-Wing said they’ve already cleared oot his pad. Can ye credit it?’

I thought of Joe’s writing, his books of drawings that looked like ideas for more tattoos. I guessed that normally a family would want these, but not Joe’s. His mother had kicked him out when he was eleven, saying, so Joe told us, that she’d never wanted him in the first place. Joe had never mentioned a dad. ‘So, what happens to his stuff?’

Angus shrugged. ‘Guvnor’ll probably pick it over for his jollies.’

A couple of the men exchanged glances, pushing deeper into their seats. 

Ross gave a huge sigh. ‘Changed ma mind. Ah’m gunna write a poem for the big man. Ah’m brilliant at poems, me.’

‘Aye right, ya wally,’ said Angus. He leaned along to slap Ross on the back, and there was laughter. From my side of the bars, I couldn’t pretend to understand prison dynamics. All I knew was that Angus got first pick of the biscuits I brought for the group, and that after his comment, the men relaxed. I imagined a collective outbreath as one by one they picked up biros, and began writing. The next few minutes had the quality of an orchestral pause.

I looked again at the picture I’d chosen, trying to kickstart a story, but the image was so at odds with where I was sitting. Echoing shouts came from the corridors beyond the library, but more than that, I could smell the prison. It was primarily metallic, but had undertones of unwashed skin and hair, and of mops that never dried out. In the image, the woman’s face made me think of looting, and eventually I wrote a few lacklustre sentences. 

At the end of the time, two of the group offered to read out their pieces. The first was a poem one man had written to his girlfriend and their baby. In an earlier session the man had confided that the thought of being a dad had kept him going, but during his partner’s last visit, she told him she’d miscarried at thirteen weeks. ‘But ah’m thinkin’ mebbe she went ‘n had an abortion, cuz ah’m in here.’ His hands shook as he read out the poem. 

Palm downwards, Angus stretched a scarred and liver-spotted hand across the table towards the man. ‘Sorry, pal,’ he said. 

From this gesture onwards, song lyrics, short stories, and seven-year-olds’ memories soared, like butterflies released from a box. I thought of Joe, the words he’d shared with us, and that there would be no more.

I was aware of the men’s noise as the officer approached our table. ‘Mass move in five, lads,’ he said, and though a couple were still writing, most shut their books and biros were handed back to me. I was supposed to count them. They were the only pens inmates were allowed. Tricky to whittle into a shiv, and flexible, so that even if a razor blade were attached, the weapon would not be useful. The biros were awful to write with too, but even so, I saw Craig disappear a couple into his pocket. I wondered if he’d managed to procure some weed. Biro shafts often turned up in makeshift bongs.

On my left, Ross ripped out a sheet from his book and screwed it into a ball. He threw it into the wastepaper basket. The buzzer sounded, and the officer lined the men up at the library door. 

After they’d filed out, I retrieved the crumpled paper from the bin and dropped it into my bag. 

Outside in the staff car park the morning’s half-hearted drizzle had become committed heavy rain, and scooped out hollows in the tarmac filled with grey water. Unlocking my car door, I looked back at the long, squat buildings of the prison, just visible through thick coils of barbed wire that topped the concrete walls. I wondered which direction Joe’s window had faced. I wished for him that it been one of those cells that gave its occupant a glimpse of the Lammermuir hills, obscured right now by curling scarves of fog. I imagined the rolling greens and mauves of the hills inspiring Joe’s thoughts. There was no point thinking of that now. 

I drove towards Gullane, to the house where I’d spent my childhood and where, for the past few months, I lived with my recently widowed mother because the alternative was worse. The rain eased during the drive. This meant that Susan, as my mother preferred to be addressed, might be out on the links playing golf. I hoped so. 

Pulling up in front of the Edwardian sandstone house that stood in spitting distance from the beach, I could see that Susan’s car was not there. On the hall table I found a note. It read: Back for supper. S.

She was not there, but evidence of her morning’s work was on the floor. My heart dropped. Lined along the corridor were cardboard boxes stuffed with my dad’s books. I put down my bag and pushed open the door to the room that my father had called, with a child’s delight, his library. The shelves were now bare, except for an abandoned feather duster and a can of spray polish. 

This room was where Dad had slept, towards the end. Now I was looking at the foam rectangle of Susan’s Pilates mat, covering two of the four indents that the feet of Dad’s bed had left. It was in this room where I’d joked about swapping his morphine drip for Glenmorangie, and Dad had laughed, until he couldn’t. Since then, I had sometimes picked up one of Dad’s books in the hope of finding a note in his handwriting, or even a stray hair, for proof that he’d been there. His absence, the space he left, made me crave his solid physicality, the sound of his breath just before he told a joke, his warm hand on my cheek when I cried.

I’d heard Susan telling people that her happiness ended when Dad died. Perhaps she believed it, but I lived with snapshots that showed something else. I remembered my mother relegating Dad to the far end of the table because she couldn’t stand the sound of him eating. Good food was Dad’s joy, even as he became ill, but she blazed at him when he put on a few pounds. It had been just four months, and already Susan was using Dad’s sanctuary, the place where he died, as her gym. Places matter. They hold something of the person, and I thought of Joe’s cell. Absurdly, I pictured a tall column of blue notebooks against the wall, and of the shape Joe made as he hung. 

I made a phone call, and Alice answered. In the background I heard happy baby shrieks reverberating in the high-ceilinged kitchen. 

‘What’s up, hen?’ My childhood friend, to the point as always.

‘Are you too busy for a walk, Al?’ 

She paused. ‘I’ll ask Mum to have Wilf, and see you on the beach in ten.’ 

I imagined Alice looking at her watch, computing what she needed to do, then cramming it all into six hundred seconds. At school, Alice had always been optimistic with time, but now with two children she was worse. ‘Let’s say half an hour,’ I said. 

Alice gave a short, throaty laugh. ‘Iona, ever the realist.’

Tyninghame sands was where, a few days after leaving hospital two years ago, Tom and I had chosen to walk. That day was still with a sky unbroken by cloud. Its primary blues and the yellow of the sunshine had felt like a taunt. Today, all colours were shades of slate. Gusts tore off the North Sea and whipped the water’s surface into icy fronds. 

In the distance, I saw Alice. She wore her usual navy bomber jacket, and slick black leggings over long legs, and was trying to untangle her cigarette arm from a rope lead, at the end of which her terrier turned somersaults. Shouting indistinguishable words at the dog, Alice gave up and tossed the cigarette into the sand. She ground it with the heel of her Doc Marten boot. 

I walked over, picked up Alice’s cigarette and handed it to her. ‘Let’s keep Scotland beautiful, now.’ 

‘Prig.’ 

I circled the imaginary halo over my head, while Alice stuck out her tongue and dropped the cigarette into the plastic bag she held at her wrist. We hugged. Her cropped dark hair smelled of smoke. ‘Stupid dog,’ said Alice, jerking out of our embrace as he tugged on the lead. ‘He should be grateful he’s getting an extra walk and he’s spoiling it for both of us.’

I bent down to stroke him, and the little terrier cannoned his nose into my face, sandy paws scraping my woolly tights as he tried to jump closer. 

I stood up. ‘Thanks for meeting me, Al.’ 

Alice unclipped the lead from the dog’s collar and we both watched as he rocketed away. The wind cast up eddies of dry sand, and it made the surface of the beach feel unstable. For a moment I thought I might fall. 

Alice put one arm around my shoulders. ‘So, what’s up?’

I wrapped my coat tighter and told her about Joe. Alice said all the right things, but her attention was elsewhere. I took some long inbreaths, letting the briny, seaweed smell work its magic. ‘Anyway. Is everything okay with you, Al?’ 

Alice whistled for her dog who had skittered across the sand after a golden retriever with a red ball. ‘I’m fine Iona, sorry, I’m just tired.’

We walked in silence for a few moments, my mind drifting to Joe’s last class. Thinking about it now, I should have noticed he didn’t join in as he usually had. And it had been a Friday. At weekends, prisoners only had an hour out of their cells each day. Twenty-three hours to think. I should have got a message to weekend staff. 

Alice was beside me now, wiping sand and dog saliva from fingers onto her leggings. ‘Iona, I can see you cared about this man but please, it’s not your stuff. You can’t afford—'

‘I know, Al.’

‘I meant—’

‘—I know what you meant. Please don’t worry about me.’

Alice was quiet. ‘You daft moo, Iona. Stop giving me things to worry about then.’

‘Alright, I’ll try.’ 

But in the silence, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from drifting back. Had anyone ever truly worried about Joe? He was talented. I was so hopeful when he talked about doing design when he got out. What happened?

Although it was summer, the morning’s rain meant the beach was quiet. There was a ragged outline of a few children standing in the shallows, screaming as North Sea waves smacked against their pale legs. Holidays must be almost over. ‘Besides,’ I said to Alice, ‘I should be over that by now.’

I heard the click of Alice’s lighter, then the whistle of her outbreath. ‘Jeez, I’m no expert but for crying out loud, it’s only been two years. Why are you so hard on yourself?’

‘Ha,’ I said. ‘I’ve been well trained.’

Alice didn’t laugh. In fact, she was unusually subdued. We reached the turning point of our walk, and the wind now blew sand towards us. Alice picked up a piece of driftwood and threw it for the terrier. He bounded after it, spraying wet sand behind him, but slowed to a trot so he could sniff a dead seagull that lay tangled in thick brown ropes of seaweed.

‘Leave!’ Alice shouted, and the dog looked back as though she were a stranger. ‘Maxy! Leave it!’ After rolling to press one shoulder hard against the carcass, the small dog ambled back, his stick forgotten. ‘Why did I agree to this animal?’ said Alice. ‘Kat gets all the benefits, a cuddle on the sofa when she gets back from work, and I get all the literal shit.’

‘Because you’re a nice person.’ A blast of wind made my eyes water, and I pulled my scarf up. 

‘That’s what I keep telling my wife.’ Alice turned towards the sea, and a halo of smoke formed around her head before blowing into my face. Alice’s shoulders had the self-defensive squareness I remembered from our school days. 

‘What aren’t you telling me, Doll?’ I asked.

‘Oh shit, Iona.’

‘What is it? You and Katrina?’

‘No, we’re fine. Or as fine as we can be with our crazy child situation.’ She looked at me quickly. ‘Sorry. I’m not complaining.’ Alice took one of my hands.

I felt sick. ‘Is Evelyn ill?’

‘No, Mum’s fine.’ I felt the pressure of Alice’s hand around mine. 

‘Iona, I’m sorry, this is lousy timing with the man dying in prison, but you’re going to find out anyway and I’d rather you heard it from me. Tom’s baby came early.’

Fuck. My heart raced and I tasted bile in my mouth. ‘When?’

‘Two days ago.’ She looked at me from under her jet-black quiff. ‘Sorry. Tom texted Kat. I guess he hoped I’d let you know. The baby is okay, apparently.’

‘Boy or girl?’ Please, not a boy.

‘A girl.’

‘How lovely for him.’ I dropped Iona’s hand, and watched my feet make imprints on the ground, glad we were heading back to the car park.

‘Are you okay?’

My scarf had slipped. I pulled it up as far as my eyelashes. ‘It’s not like I haven’t known it was going to happen. I’m fine.’ I wasn’t fine. ‘I probably won’t send a card.’

‘Sorry it’s such shitty timing.’

I snorted. ‘Shitty timing has become my ex’s speciality.’ 

Taking the cigarette from her lips where it had been resting, Alice hugged me. ‘Do you want to go for coffee? I can ask Mum to get Posy from school.’

With her arms around me I shut my eyes, absorbing the rhythmic boom and hiss of the waves. I wanted to be on my own right now. I needed to think about how I felt. ‘Thanks Alice, I’ll head home. I’m alright. Promise.’

‘You won’t—?’

‘—Top myself? You should be so lucky.’

Alice took my hand again, her breathing choppy as we made the climb to the car park. We said our goodbyes and Alice drove off. I sat in my car, thinking of Tom, of Tom being the good father of my imagination. I felt sick again. Pushing the car door open, I retched ribbons of coffee onto the grassy sand at my feet. My heart pounded, and the tears came. Leaning sideways, I pressed my cheek against the cold glass.