Angel 48 (new beginnings)

The Caribbean nurse came to see Angel and her twins before she left the ward.  Church and Sarah stood by the door waiting to escort her back to prison.

‘Your babies are doing exceedingly well and are exceedingly beautiful,’ the nurse gave Adam and Lisa one last hug before returning then to the cradle, which was also a carry cot.

Angel was streetwise enough to know that she probably fed that line to everyone, but there were tears in her eyes.

‘Good luck,’ shouted the Goth girl in the corner bed, sunlight streaming through the window and held up a clenched fist. ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down.’

‘Thanks,’ she sniffled. 

She still felt tender and sore lifting the cot and following the two guards down the corridor, past the nurses’ station, and towards the lifts.

Standing in the musty smelling lift, with the twins at their feet, Sarah joked, ‘No expense spared, we’ve a taxi waiting. And at least you’ll be spared buying one of those prams, like moon-buggies, that cost about a thousand quid!’

Angel didn’t smile or share her sense of outrage. She’d all her belongings in a white plastic bag. Her prison cell wasn’t much bigger than the lift and she felt nauseous and claustrophobic. Her heart began to race and she knelt down and stroked Lisa and then Adam to centre herself and tried not to think too much how she wouldn’t be able to take them outside in a buggy and take them trips to feed the ducks.

The black cab was parked in a no parking bay with the diesel engine running and Angel could taste the fumes as she pushed out into the new day. Church offered to help, but Angel clutched the travel cot to her chest and got into the cab. Sarah was holding the plastic bag with Angel’s belongings and handed it to her when she was seated and sat beside her.

Nobody said much when they returned to Corton Vale and Angel shut her eyes and felt herself dozing as they zipped along the motorway.

‘That’s us,’ said the cab driver, in a blokey tone

Angel smiled at the twins as they stood outside the prison. Adam kicked at the blankets and seemed to be having a bad dream. Lisa sucked at her hand and sailed on into sleep, determined not to be woken. Her brother had other ideas, letting out a scream. Then she too was screaming in accompaniment. A contest of who could make the most noise.

Sarah had already buzzed and the door swung open.   

‘Feeding time at the zoo?’ said Church, smiling.

‘Aye,’ replied Angel, actually glad to be back in a women’s prison.

She didn’t want to expose her breasts in the back of a cab, like a Sun page-three girl. But the booking in procedure had never been easier. The date of her visit to the hospital was erased from the white board and replaced with the time and date of her return. But even the most cynical prison guards melted when the saw the twins and Angel was treated as if she was a returning celebrity.

The morose prison guard with the wand meant to be screening for weapons didn’t even wave it once and spent her time cooing at the babies. ‘God, you’re so lucky,’ she said to Angel and added a toothy grin.

Sarah was waiting for her to be processed the other side of the booth. ‘You want me to carry them, for you?’

‘Nah, I’ll do it myself.’ She picked up the cot. The twins had taken to dozing and screaming.

The stink of the prison was familiar as a dirty nappy and had a rhythm like her heartbeat, if she listened to it, if she noticed it, but she didn’t want that for her babies Lisa and Adam. She wanted a life for them. A new world.

Church led them out of the main block, fiddling with her set of keys to get the right one for another lock, another block. ‘We’ll take you to the mother and baby unit.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s so stupid. No need for all this palaver. We need to take you the long circular route, while it’s outside the wire, you could just go outside the prison and take a first right, to the terraced houses.’

Sarah seemed surprised. ‘It’s outside?’ But she covered it up with an old truism Church sometimes muttered. ‘No hurry-no worry. We’ve got all day, every day.’  

But Angel grinned fit to burst. ‘It’s ootside? That’s brilliant! Whit kind of work do they dae over there?’

‘Nothing,’ Church finally found the right key. ‘Your children is your work.’

‘As it should be,’ Sarah touched her elbow and guided her along another corridor.

The wind caught in Angel’s hair as they stood in the grounds. She put down the cot and filled her lungs with clean air. She’d loved working outside in the gardening crew. She looked over at a starling, with oily feathers, clinging to a branch that swayed. A tree with berries outside the fence. Then she noticed it was two trees, or perhaps one was more of a bush growing into it. She was determined to learn the proper names for birds and trees and bushes so she could tell them to Adam and Lisa.   

The changeover went smoothly, a minimal of paperwork, which Church handled. The new guard was in her forties, lank, brown hair, dressed in a crumpled purple blouse and fawn slacks, strappy leather sandals on her feet, she had a tag with her name on it, STACEY. A smidgen of lipstick and sharp features, her nose was a shiny and reddish at the nub and nostrils.

‘I’ll get you a cuppa, show you around and help you get settled,’ she told Angel, as she led her up the stairs. ‘When’s good for you?’

The grey carpet pile was thick under her feet and the lobby smelled of air freshener, walls whitewashed and clean and artex ceilings.

‘I need to feed the wains first.’  Lisa was screaming, almost purple faced. Adam more muted, but they created a fierce racket as she lugged them behind her. She craned her neck. ‘Have you got some kinda room, where I can dae it?’

‘Och, of course, we have.’ Stacey held a plastic bag and turned a handle and dropped Angel’s belongings on the smoke-grey carpet, beside the open door and white-washed wall and stood, waiting to be invited inside.

Angel hesitated, put the cot down in the hall. Her new cell wasn’t like any other cell she’d been in. Her bed looked Ikea new, the blankets fluffy and light with hospital corners. Somebody had balanced a teddy bear with a red ribbon around its neck on the pillow. A telly sat on a walnut-coloured wood cabinet. A leather couch on which to lounge, with the remote on the armrest and a rug splashed down, an island away from the telly. And a pine wardrobe for all the stuff she didn’t have and didn’t much care about.

She wandered across to the window, looking out at Corton Vale and put her hand against the pane of glass and started sobbing.

Stacey came into the room, uninvited, carrying the twins. ‘You alright?’

‘Just happy,’ she looked down at the twins and wiped at her eyes. ‘Better get the monsters fed, I suppose.’

Stacey hunkered down to get a closer look at them. ‘They’re great when they’re that age.’ She laughed. ‘Look at them. The problems start when they’re older.’

‘That’s something to look forward to.’ Angel lifted the cot and took them across to the couch and sat down, unbuttoning her blouse.

‘Absolutely,’ Stacey nodded in agreement, creeping out of the room. ‘I’ll call back later, if that’s alright?’

‘Sure.’ Angel paid little attention to the door clicking shut. She’d lifted both children to her breasts. Cradling their heads, they tugged on her breasts with warm mouths, and started feeding. Lisa the greedier of the two.