Blood Sisters(10)

I follow her out of the hut. It’s good to breathe fresh air again. We pass the queue of men. They’re standing, I now see, by an open hatch, a bit like a stable door. ‘Waiting for their post,’ says my guide curtly.

One of the men is walking away, head down. His hands are empty.

I almost feel sorry for him.

We’re going into another cabin now. There’s a little flight of stairs leading up. SECURITY, it says on the door. My companion reaches for the bunch of keys round her waist. She unlocks it, ushers me in and locks the door behind us.

I look around uncertainly. There’s a grey carpet. A noticeboard. One brightly coloured poster advises me to ‘Watch Your Back’. Another reminds me that it is my duty to inform another member of staff if I feel a prisoner is behaving in an ‘inappropriate manner’. A third points out (unnecessarily, I would have thought) that ‘Personal relationships between staff and prisoners are unlawful’.

For a low-risk, open prison, all this seems rather unnerving.

‘In here, Miss Baker.’

‘Please,’ I say. ‘Call me Alison.’

I receive a stony glance in return. Once more, that feeling of apprehension crawls over me. There’s another woman standing there. She has a box of black belts and pouches next to her. But she appears jollier than the one who brought me here.

‘Hi! I’m Sandra. I’m going to give you your key induction chat.’

Keys. I’ve always been anxious about everyday things since the accident. Locking up is one of them. Hence the need to constantly go back and check my own door.

‘First thing is, you keep this belt on at all times. Never, ever take it off. If you voluntarily give it to a prisoner, it’s a criminal offence. Always lock a door when you leave. If you find one open, you have to stay by it until someone passes and you can report it. Do not leave it unattended. Attached to the pouch is a whistle. If you get into trouble, you blow it.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Oh, you know,’ she says airily. ‘If someone attacks you. Doesn’t happen often but you need to be on your toes.’

Attacks me?

‘It’s the mind games you really need to watch out for. There’s a few men who’ll try to make you feel sorry for them by telling you how they were abused as kids. They use it as an excuse for being abusers themselves.’

My stomach feels sick – empty. But Sandra is rattling on. ‘You’ve got to sign in for your keys at the main office as soon as you get here and then sign them out when you leave. If you take them home, you’ll be dismissed. Got it?’

Actually, I want to say, ‘Would you mind running through that again?’ But instead, she’s giving me a form to sign, and suddenly I have the keys to the prison! Shouldn’t I have to go through a more rigorous induction before taking on a responsibility like this?

‘We’re a bit short-staffed today, so I can’t take you to Education. I’ve got one of the orderlies to do it instead.’

I have a mental picture of a porter pushing my sister’s trolley in the hospital.

‘A medical orderly?’ I ask.

Sandra gives me an are you an idiot? look. ‘Men who have proved they are trustworthy can volunteer to be orderlies. They do jobs like dishing out the post or taking visitors around the prison.’

The door opens. ‘Ah, Kurt. Here you are. Thanks. Can you take Miss Baker to Education? She’s the new artist in residence.’

The boy with the stained teeth and long hair grins at me. I recognize him immediately. He’s the one who offered to help me earlier. The one I’d turned away. ‘Follow me, miss.’

There appears to be no option.

I’ve been to the Education hut before, of course, at my interview. But I won’t find my way again through this labyrinth without Kurt. All the buildings look the same, apart from a few which have signs. My guide takes great pleasure in pointing them all out as if showing me round his own house and grounds.

MUSIC ROOM.

MULTIFAITH ROOM.

GYM.

LAUNDRY ROOM.

LIBRARY.

‘It’s like a village,’ I blurt out. Kurt laughs as though I’ve just said something really funny.

‘Yeah. A village what you can’t leave.’

Another building is coming up. COMPUTER CENTRE.

‘Are you allowed to email home?’ I ask.

‘You’re kidding!’ Kurt shakes his head as if explaining something to a small child. ‘Not unless you want to get shipped out. Towards the end of your sentence, you can have a day out with your girl to prove you’re responsible enough to come back. But I’ve got to wait a bit for that.’

I long to ask Kurt how long he’s got until his sentence is up but bite the words back. ‘So, what happens at the computer centre?’

‘We do exams and stuff so as, when we come out, we’ve got some experience. Some of the men do qualifications in plumbing too.’

Before I can ask him more, we arrive at the Education hut. ‘Bet you’ll have loads of students signing up for your classes, miss.’

‘Art’s not an easy option, you know,’ I say, more sharply than I mean to.

‘Didn’t mean it that way.’ Kurt grins. ‘It’s ’cos you’re a woman.’

I feel another uneasy shiver passing through me. ‘There are other female staff around here.’