Two Women (67 page)

‘The sooner you get an appeal date, the better.’

Susan hugged herself with delight.

‘I think I really may be in with a chance with this Geraldine bird. I wonder how Matty will react to me having her on my case as well?’

Rhianna didn’t answer. But she had a feeling that the mood Matty was in, she wasn’t going to be too pleased.

‘You be careful, Susan. Keep an eye out. When Matty’s like this she’s capable of anything.’

Susan shrugged good-naturedly.

‘She’ll be all right once she gets back in the swing of things. And Sarah’s saved a lot of hag, hasn’t she? Holding her hand up like that. Matty will get over it in time. Like we all do.’

Rhianna didn’t answer.

Susan’s head was full of thoughts of Wendy and Roselle. She was about to see the friend she hadn’t clapped eyes on for over two years. She couldn’t wait for this visit. It was going to be brilliant.

‘Anyway, I’ve got me girl in today and me best mate, Roselle. I ain’t seen her in the flesh for so long I feel all excited at the prospect. I want to take a good gander at her, see how the last few years have treated her.’

Rhianna was caught up in Susan’s enthusiasm.

‘Roselle who? You’re always talking about her, I know the name.’

‘Roselle Digby. She lives in Soho.’

Rhianna looked impressed.

‘Not
the
Roselle Digby, runs that club in Dean Street?’

The tone of her voice said it all and Susan laughed.

‘The very same. Me and her go back quite a few years now. She’s a fucking good mate. It’s her offered to pay for this Geraldine bird, though she says she’ll do the case for nix if necessary.’

‘I’ll bet. You’ll get her press coverage and kudos, remember that.’ Rhianna was impressed, though, and it showed. ‘You should have let your secret out long ago. You’d have been treated like visiting Royalty in here with her on your case.’

Susan sighed happily.

‘Maybe, maybe not. Still, it’s all coming together now, ain’t it?’

Rhianna smiled.

‘You’ll get out, Susan. I have a good feeling about it.’

‘So do I actually. I finally feel able to look forward, you know?’

Rhianna knew exactly what she meant and felt a fleeting moment of jealousy.

‘I know exactly how you feel. Believe me,
I know
.’

 

Geraldine was surprised at the change in Matty. She looked thinner, if that were possible, and red-faced, as if she had been running, which was definitely impossible in this place.

‘Hello, Matty. I take it they’ve explained everything?’

She nodded.

‘The girl picked a fight. It happens in these places, Geraldine. I had to defend myself.’

Geraldine wasn’t sure about that.

‘Well, anyway, we have an appeal date. Four weeks’ time, the third of November. How’s that?’

Matty smiled, her face disarmingly pretty in the early-afternoon sunlight.

‘Great. I can’t wait to be out.’

Her voice was like a little girl’s. Geraldine swallowed down the feeling of revulsion that swept over her every time she talked to this particular client.

‘You should be fine, going by the advance press coverage. I think the climate’s right now. People are interested in battered wives. It’s political. Laws are being brought in and enforced. I think you have a good chance of coming home.’

Matty smiled again.

‘Good. Because this place is starting to get me down. I want to put Victor and everything that happened behind me. Start a new life.’

‘It’ll be hard to put it behind you when your book is published, won’t it?’

Geraldine couldn’t resist the jibe and Matty shrugged again. Even more nonchalantly than usual.

‘If people want to hear my story, why shouldn’t I tell it? Other women may be inspired to leave similar domestic arrangements before it’s too late. I left it too late and look what happened to me. A cautionary tale is just what’s needed, don’t you think?’

She could justify anything, Geraldine knew, and let the matter drop. But it hung in the air between them and made the atmosphere heavy.

‘I’m representing Susan Dalston as well,’ Geraldine said to change the subject. ‘Did you know?’

Matty’s face paled and she pushed her hair back from her forehead in an action Geraldine now knew meant she was angry.

‘No. No one bothered to enlighten me on that fact. Least of all my own counsel.’

‘Come on, Matty, calm down. I have many clients, you know that. I always deal with women in trouble. Which is exactly what Susan Dalston is. Her children need her. She needs them. If ever a woman shouldn’t have been locked up in the first place it’s Susan Dalston. I mean, this was serial abuse of the worst kind. I know, I can prove it. Get her out and back home again. I’m looking forward to it. I liked her from the word go.’

Matty didn’t answer. She was listening to the noise outside. It was visiting time and she could hear the chatter of husbands and boyfriends, kids and mums. She had had one visit since she had been in prison that wasn’t a legal consultation and that was a visit she could have done without.

‘Before I forget - a woman rang asking to see me about you. Angela something or other. But she didn’t turn up. Do you know what it might be about?’

Matty’s expression didn’t change. She knew Geraldine had deliberately slipped this in to gauge her reaction.

‘Could be a journalist. I don’t know any Angelas off hand. Why, did it seem important?’

That innocent look was back. Geraldine shrugged.

‘No. It just seemed strange, that’s all. I thought it might be someone who could help you.’

‘The only person who can help me is you, Geraldine. You’re all I’ve got.’

‘Plus the women’s groups and the feminists. Let’s not forget them.’

Matty looked at a point above her head.

‘Oh, what do they know really? You’re the important one, aren’t you? Without you I’d have been left to rot in here. No, this is all down to you, Geraldine. I can’t tell you how I feel.’

She had the distinct impression that Matty was laughing at her and knew she could do absolutely nothing about it. Everyone was entitled to a fair trial, whatever the personal feelings of their counsel. Geraldine knew inside herself that Matty’s release could be the forerunner to a lot of women receiving true justice for crimes they’d been forced to commit. The Susan Dalstons and so many others like her. So why did she feel no sympathy with this woman? Why did she feel she was making a big mistake in representing her? Everyone else thought Matty was wonderful, the dream client, intelligent, witty, articulate, very attractive.

Yet privately she felt sure that Matilda Enderby was a cold-blooded, murdering bitch. Geraldine was depressed again.

Matty always did that to her.

 

Susan saw her daughter and her friend sitting waiting in the drab visiting room and grinned like a Cheshire cat. Roselle hugged her until a PO forced them apart. They sat at the rickety table and Wendy went to get coffees and a Coke so they had a few minutes alone together.

‘You look bleeding fantastic, Roselle. Really great. And not a day older.’

Susan’s voice was full of admiration.

‘You don’t look too bad yourself, girl. You ain’t half done some weight.’

Susan sighed.

‘Better than a health farm in here. I wish I’d been banged up years ago, I’d never have got so bleeding fat.’

But she was pleased with the compliment and it showed.

‘I’m only ten stone now. Christ, I feel like Twiggy.’

Susan’s fine features were once more in evidence and although she would never be beautiful she was certainly attractive and this pleased Roselle no end.

‘How’s Wendy seem?’ she asked her friend anxiously.

‘Much better. I think knowing you might be coming home is a real help. Oh, and I heard through the grapevine the adoption’s being rushed through.’ Roselle raised her hand to shut Susan up before she started. ‘Geraldine will deal with that, it’s all part of the process of getting you out - the fact you was such a brilliant mother. So stop worrying. I have the dosh to hold them up in court until the year two thousand if necessary.’

Susan felt herself relax.

‘You’re a good mate, Roselle. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. If nothing else at least Barry gave me the kids, and in a funny way he gave me you and all, didn’t he?’

Roselle grasped her hand tightly.

‘And he gave me you, and through you Wendy. I’m so fond of you both now, you’re more to me than family. Except for my Joe, of course.’

‘Of course. How is he?’

Roselle went into overdrive about her son and his merits and Susan listened gleefully. Her cup was running over. Seeing Roselle in the flesh made up for everything, such was the power of their friendship.

A few of the women in the visiting room stared in disbelief at Susan Dalston and Roselle Digby. Susan had not realised how well known Roselle was and saw now why her friend didn’t want to visit her before. She was a curiosity to them all. A well-known face who had never had so much as a parking ticket. Ivan’s woman she was often called, even though anything between them had been over years ago.

Susan quite enjoyed the stir they created.

‘Cor, if I’d realised, I’d have made you visit me before. I can do with all the help I can get in this place.’

A female prisoner stopped by the table and nodded hello to Susan and Roselle. Wendy brought the coffee back and said delightedly, ‘They’re all talking about you up by the coffee bar. Nice things of course.’

Roselle sipped the coffee and grinned.

‘Would they dare say anything else?’ Then, changing the subject abruptly, she asked Susan the burning question. ‘What do you think of Geraldine O’Hara then?’

‘I think she’s great, Roselle. She’s also looking after Matty, me cell mate.’

‘Give you more in common that will. Geraldine seems to think you getting out is a foregone conclusion.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ll wait and see. But even I have a good feeling. I daren’t get too excited, though. That’s fatal in this place. You have to think of the worst that can happen. Anything over and above that is a bonus.’

Wendy listened to them both intently.

‘Tell them the truth, Mum. Let’s get it out once and for all.’

Susan looked at her daughter and said stiffly, ‘They’ll get enough of the truth, love, to last them a lifetime. We don’t need to involve you in any of this.’

Wendy looked into her face.

‘You still can’t see it, can you, Mum? Maybe I need the truth to be told so people can understand me a bit better. So I can understand meself. Try and make a bit of sense of my life.’

Susan looked into the lovely troubled face and said seriously, ‘There’s nothing to make sense of, love. You were caught up in something that wasn’t within your control. I know, I was there meself for years. Your dad was a user, of people and of things. I can see that now. I lie in that bunk at night and wonder at how much power I let him have over us all. I was a bloody fool. I should have gone on the trot years before. Let him stew in his own juice. But I never. I sat it out. And for what, eh? For this. Now, if you open your mouth, you kick it all back in my face. Bear that in mind, love.’

Wendy stared at her for long moments.

‘This ain’t about you now, Mum. Even I can see that much. This is about blame, about who did this and who did that. Well, I should take my part of that blame. I should start to accept responsibility for what I did.’

Roselle watched the mother and her nearly grown daughter and was amazed how they were reacting to each other. It was as if they were going to fight.

‘Calm down, you two.’

Her voice broke into their study of one another.

Susan leaned forward in her chair and hissed, ‘You tell no one, you hear me? You do and I’ll call you a liar. Say it’s all so you could get me home and they’ll believe that, mate. They will.’

Something was going on and Roselle was not sure what it was.

‘Ain’t I got enough on me plate with Rosie and the fucking Simpsons, Barry’s school work and Alana’s unhappiness, without you starting now and all? I don’t need this, Wend. I really don’t need this on top of everything else.’

Susan’s voice was shaking with emotion.

‘It would mean a retrial, all sorts of trouble, so let it go. Please, just let it go and then when I get home I’ll make it all all right. I promise you, darlin’.’

Wendy got up from the table and walked out to the reception area where the public toilets were.

Susan took one look at Roselle’s expression and said, ‘This is between me and her.’

Roselle nodded gently.

‘So it would seem. But like Geraldine said, a closed courtroom might do the trick if you’d only see as much. What he did to her would get you a walking sentence straight off and, whether you want to hear this or not, Wendy
needs
to help, to make her feel better inside. Can’t you see that, Susan? That child is full of guilt and remorse over what happened. She needs to make things right inside herself. To make herself feel better.’

Susan didn’t answer her. She was miles away. Back in her little house looking once more at the dead body of her husband.

‘She ain’t a child any more, Sue. She’s a woman. Barry saw to that. Now it’s up to you to let her know that you respect her as an adult. As someone who can make her own decisions. It happened to
her
, Sue. It happened to
her
, not
you
. She has to be able to sort it out herself or Barry’s won again, hasn’t he? He’s still controlling you all.’

Susan didn’t answer her.

There was nothing she felt she could say.

Wendy came back. She smiled gently at her mother.

‘I miss you, Mum, and I have to get myself better inside. I won’t if you keep protecting me. I need the truth to come out. Need people to know what happened.’