The Governor and The Mourner

I don't know why I came here. It isn't obigatory. It isn't expected of me. I've surprised myself. The chapel is empty and draughty. The only mourner is an old woman. I wonder is she the mother? She eyes me suspiciously for long, cool moments. Perhaps she thinks I'm a reporter. She is right to be wary, who comes to the funeral of people like this?

I know a little of what it has been like for her; the press on her doorstep, the phone calls, the local vigilantes. She looks forlorn in that way the very old and very frail do. In that way that makes me want to crumple down on the hard floor between the pews and weep. But of course, I don't do that. I am renowned for being made of tougher stuff than that. I hold the woman's gaze, looking down when organ music pipes up from a tinny cd player in the corner.

Tougher stuff. I have overheard my staff call me scary. The Czar, they call me. “It wouldn't hurt 'er to crack a smile”. I suppose I am a sort of poster girl for the successful woman. Without the shoulder pads and bronzed skin. A first class degree in analytical business. Successful.

But I do not see my success as the rightful reward of my years of hard work. I only see the culmination of elements; being the way they should, desirable results being produced. I've made no real sacrifices. I enjoyed the rigorous nights of study, reading long after my housemates had gone out partying. I would often still be sitting at the computer when they came in singing, tripping over and dropping glasses on the kitchen floor. I was more than content to waive my rights to the obligatory drinking and ecstasy binges. I have always liked my own pace, my own thoughts.

There has been no real hardship, very little struggle and a great deal of security. I think of my parents, I see a long thread of continuity, of consistency. They did not dream of grandness and I never saw them explode in great displays of passion. A mid-terrace house paid for by the time they were in their fifties and a daughter at uni. They didn't ask for more.

And then there was Stephen, we were happy just to stay in and quietly watch films together. We never felt the need to go wild, to stamp our mark on the night, prove to the world that we were twenty and alive. I suppose I chose a calm, stoic man like my dad and things went the way they should, as if we had carefully charted a course and watched as our lives follow an obedient trajectory.

We left it late to have kids. We sat down and discussed it. Made lists and calculated costs. In three months we were on our way. We didn't see twins coming, that certainly wasn't in the plan, but mine and his family were delighted and more involved than I could have hoped.

Still, I took the first two years off work and stalked about the house like a ghost while the girls napped. I started wearing lipstick and tried to make myself into the sort of friendly, dappy woman other mums would find approachable. I went to coffee mornings and 'mums and tots' groups and secretly felt like I was drowning.

My promotion came quickly, and my appointment as governor within twelve months of returning. They said they saw me as a calming influence. They liked my level head, my determination to work to schedule, to method and procedure.

I relished the hard edges of the role. I liked to take something impossible, scrawling and messy and work to bring it into order. Quietly. I heard rumours that the old governor would lose his temper, shouting at the guards and the inmates, but I unearthed a patience and absorption in the role that energised me.

It is the questions, the endlessly complex disappointments, the idiosyncrasies that exhaust me. I know I am pale and plain and that people find me humourless. What people don't know is the continual trawling that goes on inside, below my brisk, managerial surface.

I would like to think that the inmates know that I really do listen and that I will carry their story, their chaos inside me. Wrangling and banging around, smacking hard against the givens and universals I have been taught to believe in. A concealed and discreet wrestling and storming until I can bring it under some sort of order again. Until I can come up with an answer for them, a solution, until I can grate against impossibilities and legislation and find a path for us to tread. And I hope they feel that in some way, although formal and bureaucratic, I will tread as much of that path with them as I can.

There are so many why questions here with these women. They have brought me right up against unanswerable questions. They have brought me up against haphazard why questions of the soul.

Sometimes, they call me a fascist. That's another thing I've overheard. I shied away from philosophy, humanities and religious studies as a student; as a wife and mother I have practised routine and diligence. Now I stagger a little at the ugly why questions of the human race. I am glad of the aloneness these questions bring with them. I couldn't cope with the strain of teasing them out with the clutter and noise of other voices.

I have been dreaming: the minister has appeared and has been speaking. I glance at the woman. She is staring straight ahead, unblinking. I have an itching curiosity to hear the eulogy. How will it fit and conflict with the thick file I have locked in my cabinet? How will it fit and conflict with the image of the woman who sat in my office, picking her nails and looking over my head while I spoke?

I know that the acts this woman committed have, in many eyes, forfeited her right to be considered a woman. How could a woman do that, to her own? For them she ceased to be human a long time ago. I read an editorial in the paper once, that went something like She must be on close watch, an early death would be to get off lightly for her.

The minister has this way I have noticed in the the pious; a resolute politeness. He has managed to completely sidestep horror and truth and the result is inoffensive, but bland. Almost not quite worth it. Those jagged questions I carry remain untouched by his words. He has spoken for almost ten minutes but I'm not sure he has said anything. Perhaps I'm being too hard on the poor man. I sneak another glance at the woman and wonder what she is making of his words. Are there special memories she holds? Photographs of children playing on the beach? I strongly suspect the woman has none of the simple, happy things I have blithely enjoyed.

I've never had cause to question the intricacies of what a soul is, and what it might mean to say spirit, evil, or hope, not until now. Of course, this one, the deceased, she's not the first nasty one, nor the first with a shocking past. But she will stand alone in my mind forever.

I will never forget the single moment of eye contact we shared. I stood in the doorway to her cell, I said her name and she turned and looked up. If I was more prone to think in such terms, I would swear that something intangible but very real and terrifying passed between us. From her gaze to mine. My stomach lurched and I found myself clearing my throat. Then it was gone, she glazed over, dull eyes staring at a spot above my head. I'd forgotten what I'd been about to say, I stammered something oblique and left quickly, my skin prickling beneath my blouse.

The investigation is under way. I will respond with a series of thorough and collected reports. There will be questions asked. Duty of care. Suicide watch. Bullying. Pastoral support. Psychiatric reports. I will not take it personally. I know these questions are rightful. They are rightfully mine.

I was gone again, the music has started up and woman is pulling herself to her feet. She stands and looks over intently, it seems she has decided Im not from the press. Perhaps she has worked out who I am. She stops and places a gloved hand on my shoulder. I can see her daughter's brow and the cracks of a hard life on her tiny face. She almost smiles as she says “Thank you for coming dear” and achingly slowly, she hobbles away.

So I sit for some time. The chapel is bare and draughty, I suppose, a bit like a cell.
I think of the woman who bore life and killed, who picked her nails, who had hidden a collection of sea shells in her bunk, of her taut mouth and thick dark lashes.

I can't shake the haunting of that moment our eyes met. I think of caged beasts screaming in the night. I think of small, trusting hands reaching for crumbs, for love. I think of shadows shifting in dark woods. Of shards and screeching, grainy sharp nights and howling winds rattling panes. I think of ashes and dust and flames and satin and lilies.

It is nearly three o'clock. I stand and smooth the creases on my navy suit skirt, stretch my legs to try to get the circulation going, and begin to make my way out of the chapel to return to the prison.