The Zombie Room (7 page)

Ermina displayed the knowing smile of someone conversing with the village idiot, and shook her head as she picked up her cup. She blew onto the hot coffee but put it back on the table without taking a drink. ‘Luckily for you, Sadiq is taking care of me.’

Tazeem took a breath and swallowed down his bitterness before it could be verbalised.

‘Look, Tazeem, we can all see how you’ve failed up to this point, but that’s not to say it’s all over for you.’

‘What do you mean, “failed”, and who exactly is the
all
you’re talking of?’

‘Me, Sadiq, my father, your mother. I’ve spoken to Sadiq and he’ll take over your responsibilities while you’re in here. He’s working on some pretty exciting things, actually, so when you’re released you’ll come to work for him. With a more capable and dominant man leading the way we will all benefit, Tazeem.’

He sat back in the chair, dumbfounded.

Ermina checked her watch. ‘I have to go. I just wanted to come in and tell you not to worry, and that I’ll move into your house to look after it for you. I won’t be visiting again, though, I can’t bear this place,’ she said distastefully, and wiped her palms on the front of her skirt. She reached across to take Tazeem’s hand.

‘No contact, table four,’ a leather-faced guard bellowed down the row.

Ermina abruptly withdrew her hand. ‘Goodbye Tazeem,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Try to stay out of trouble.’

4

For two months Tatiana lived with Sasha, the girl she’d run into after her encounter with the man at the fried chicken booth, her little sister Polina, and Natalia, whose small rented apartment they all stayed in. Sasha and Polina had been made homeless after their mother was killed during a brutal robbery. No one was caught for the crime, so their father sought his own vengeance. He beat the name of a man from a drunk in a bar, hunted him down and murdered him. Whether his act of retaliation was in fact directed at the perpetrator of the atrocity, Sasha and her sister didn’t know. After their father was arrested, they took what money they could find and what belongings they could carry, and fled, fearing if they were put into social care they may be separated forever.

Polina had been friends with a deaf girl at school and understood sign language. Tatiana picked it up quickly and eventually, through Polina’s patience and dedication, was able to read the girl’s lips as she spoke the words she was signing.

Tatiana felt a sudden vibration through the arm of the couch, and Polina sprang up from the seat beside her and rushed from the room. Tatiana followed her. In the tiny bathroom, they saw
Natalia crouched in the shower cubicle with her face in her hands. Polina swept aside the ragged shower curtain, sat in front of her and tried to ease Natalia’s hands away to see what was wrong. Finally she relented. The left side of her face was swollen and scraped. Her make-up was smeared and streaked from the tears that ran down her cheeks, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she tried to catch her breath.

Tatiana knelt down and took her hand as Polina ran to fetch Natalia’s asthma inhaler. They knew what had happened. Natalia had suffered in this way before. Tatiana led her through to the sitting-room and they sat down on the couch. Polina came in and handed her the inhaler. Natalia shook it and took two blasts. Her breathing levelled out and she eased back against a cushion. She would talk about it when she felt ready.

‘At first he was nice man,’ Natalia said eventually, after wiping her face with a cloth Polina brought her from the bathroom. ‘He even took me for meal first, they never do that, then to hotel room where we start to do it. He was struggling to … perform.’

‘He was a limp dick,’ Polina said and giggled.

‘Don’t talk like that. If Sasha was here she would make you eat soap,’ Tatiana scolded. She took a breath and then more softly she said, ‘Polina, why don’t you go to your room and try to get some sleep. Your sister will be back soon, she will come sit with you.’

Obediently she left the room so that the older girls could talk.

‘She’s too young to understand how dangerous it is,’ Tatiana said. Natalia nodded. ‘You can’t go on like this, Talia. Who knows what might happen next time.’

‘I know. Have you thought about coming away with me?’

‘To buy visa is so expensive. You’ve been so kind to me already, I would never be able to repay you.’

‘We won’t have enough for full visas, but we can get working deal. In this country men only pay women for sex, but overseas women get paid good money just for dancing. I have enough for down payment, and we can go to a place I hear of, Garden
Heights. We can work in club as dancers to pay what we owe, then afterwards we are free to do what we want.’

Tatiana nodded her agreement to Natalia. The prospect of leaving both scared and excited her, but she knew there was now nothing left for her in her homeland but grief, and memories of what she had lost.

The inmates were led out to wait in reception for the transport to arrive. Mangle was the only one from his unit and the last to congregate with the other prisoners. He was uncuffed from the accompanying guard, who was around 30, with a round face and plump wrists like those of a baby or an old woman. The handcuffs left indents where they had nestled between the folds of flesh. The other prisoners were already shackled together in pairs, except for one, and Mangle was attached to him.

‘Evening,’ the inmate said, as they were handcuffed together.

It was morning, but Mangle still nodded, acknowledging the ice-breaker. His travelling companion was burly but not brutish, and had no visible tattoos on his hands and arms which seemed at odds with his powerful prison physique, although there were two words on the back of his neck: ‘Carpe Diem’.

Their belongings were sealed and tagged in clear plastic bags and taken down onto the bus. A register was called, which seemed a little pointless at this stage, but they answered to their names anyway and then filed down one pair at a time. His companion was called Derek Rankin.

The day was cold and a tablecloth of cloud permitted only a smudgy grey light to permeate. Climbing on board a vehicle for the first time in over two years filled Mangle with a warmth of memory, and he tried to savour every detail. The world seemed a much larger place than the one he’d left the last time he passed through the prison gates.

The bus seats were divided by a central aisle. Each seat was taken up by a pair of cuffed inmates. A guard occupied the third seat in every other row. Mangle and his companion took their
seats on the second to last row. The pudgy-wristed guard took the inside seat on their row. Once the last two guards had climbed aboard, the door was locked and the engine started up.

All of the prisoners were silent and looked out of the windows almost in enchantment as the bus began to move. Mangle guessed most of them had probably not seen anything outside the prison walls for a lot longer than himself.

The bus was designed for anything but comfort, and Mangle could soon feel the heat from the engine below his seat. Diesel fumes reached up through tiny gaps between the metal plates on the floor, making him nauseous.

The guards chatted quietly amongst themselves while the prisoners mostly maintained silence. The guard on Mangle’s row flirted with a female guard who sat diagonally across the aisle, in front of them. A shaven-headed man with a pock-marked face and a spider-web tattoo on his neck was cuffed to an Asian in the seat beside her. The flirting was awkward and Mangle cringed at the guard’s heavy-handed approach toward the woman, who in Mangle’s estimation was way out of his league. She smiled politely at his attempts at humour, but he recognised the want-away look in her eyes from similar situations he’d been in at nightclubs.

There was a break in the conversation as pudgy-wrists perhaps reassessed his battle plan, and the female guard turned back around and faced forward. Undeterred, or maybe just desperate enough to have one last try, pudgy wrists poked her on the shoulder. When she turned he pointed sneakily towards the Asian sitting to her left, screwed up his face and wafted a hand under his nose. Bizarrely, this seemed to work and she let out a light-hearted laugh that turned a few heads further down the bus. The Asian man turned his head momentarily, but unaware that he was the reason for her laughter, looked back out of the window.

Mangle had never seen the man in Portmarsh, as they’d been housed in different wings, but he felt more of an affinity to him than to the racist guard he sat alongside.

‘Hey man, what’s your name?’ Mangle asked across the aisle, but the Asian didn’t turn around.

‘Tazeem!’ Mangle’s companion said.

The Asian turned around, startled at the unexpected contact. He nodded over at them.

‘And I’m Decker,’ the man said, extending his uncuffed hand.

Reedland Grange was a minimum security prison for offenders considered to be of low risk to the public, coming towards the end of their sentence and preparing for reintegration to the community. Rather than a 23-hour lock-up, they were made to work at a variety of jobs around the prison and get accustomed to a six-day working week, to make the transition back into society less turbulent.

‘Tazeem, hey.’

He was on his way back to work for the afternoon kitchen shift and turned at the sound of his name.

‘Mohammed, how you doing?’

‘I’m good, man. How come you never hang out with the brothers after work?’

‘I do sometimes, just depends on how I feel.’

‘Nah, you’re always with that white boy. What’s up with that?’

‘Nothing up with it, man, he’s my friend. His cell is on my landing and we both work in the kitchens. So what?’

‘Spending so much time with a Kafir, it’s not right. You should stick to your own.’

‘Whatever, man. You don’t even know him. You just bag him out ’cause he’s white and has different beliefs.’

‘You’re a Muslim. It’s white people who locked you up in here and now you look to make friends with them?’

‘It’s the law that locked us up in here, the same as it did Mangle. I’m gonna be late for work, man, I’ll see you at Friday prayer.’

‘Yeah, make sure you don’t miss it this week. Remember where you belong, Tazeem.’

Tazeem hurried on to the huge brick building that housed the
kitchen and vast dining hall. Some of the other workers were smoking hand-rolled cigarettes by the door before the start of their shift, and greeted him as he walked by.

‘What was up with Mohammed?’ Mangle asked as Tazeem came in and put on his apron and hat. ‘I saw you just before I came in to work.’

‘He’s just being a prick, nothing new there.’

‘I don’t think he likes me,’ Mangle said, grinning.

‘Yeah, probably not. He doesn’t seem to like anyone with your milky complexion,’ Tazeem said, and laughed.

They both took up their station in veg prep. Tazeem sliced a turnip in half and began expertly to manoeuvre the sharp blade of his knife around the purple skin, revealing the firm yellow flesh underneath. He glanced at the three huge sacks on the floor. It would be a long afternoon.

Part of the rehabilitation programme at Reedland Grange involved improving the level of literacy and numeracy of the inmates, to enable them to function in an average workplace. Tazeem took his usual seat at the far corner table, took out his notebook and waited as the other inmates came in and sat down. The tables were arranged around the walls in a U formation, the teacher’s desk at the front and the whiteboard directly behind her. Mohammed was one of the last to enter, and sauntered over to sit beside Tazeem.

The teacher was in her fifties, short in stature, and had an easy-going manner that could change gear to that of a drill sergeant in a split second when required.

‘For the new faces in this class I’ll remind you that these classes are compulsory, you must attend, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. I am here as your teacher, not as your enemy. Isn’t that right, Les?’ she said, aiming a theatrical glare at one of the larger inmates.

Tazeem knew Les from working in the kitchen. He had shoulders as wide as a doorframe and a neck as thick as a bull’s, a
sloping forehead, overhanging brow and a blunt nose, and carried a perpetual scowl wherever he went.

‘Yes, Miss,’ he grunted in reply, failing to acknowledge her attempt at humour.

‘You’ll all be working at different levels, so if someone asks a question that you yourself find easy, you will not mock them. The goal here is the same for you all, to improve your own skills and increase your chances of getting and keeping a good job on the outside.’

An ironic ripple of laughter went around the room that the teacher ignored.

‘Anyway, for those of you that don’t know, my name is Annabelle McCulloch. You can call me Miss or Annabelle. Not Anna, not Belle, and definitely not Tinkerbelle, so please don’t think you’re the first one to come up with that.’

A more enthusiastic laugh warmed the room. Tazeem was impressed at how the teacher managed to forge a link with her students, despite the visible hostility most had entered with. With the introduction over, the lesson started.

Tazeem looked over the worksheet he’d been given and began writing. Mohammed started talking to him in Urdu, so Tazeem ignored him. He knew it would incite ill feeling from inmates able to hear but not understand what was being said, even though Mohammed wasn’t talking about anything in particular. He knew the result would be the same; it was clearly a calculated move, epitomized by the half-smile Mohammed wore as he spoke.

‘In English please, you two,’ Annabelle said looking over towards them.

‘Yeah, it’s fucking English class, not Bunkoo-Bunkoo,’ a voice from the far side of the room snapped.

Tazeem looked across and saw Les leering back at them. Mohammed stood up and began to hurl insults at Les in Arabic until Tazeem put a hand on his arm. ‘Leave it, Mohammed. You knew this would happen.’

Mohammed sat back in his chair with a faint look of pride at
how easily he had managed to elicit some petty racism from the room.