Angel 73 (escape)

Adam slept in the taxi all the way back to The Unit and Angel had dozed fitfully. She put him straight into the cot and figured that would be him out for the night. It had been a long day. Too long.  She changed into jammies with thin blue stripes and lay on the couch with the telly on low, so she could listen to his breathing and reached over, now and again, to touch his neck or shoulders.

Church nipped into see her, before she went off shift. Her eyes were dull and pouched, even her voice sounded tired. ‘I shouldn’t really be saying this, but you need to be careful now and not go off the rails. You need to be strong for Adam.’

‘Jesus,’ said Angel. ‘You’re tellin’ me to pull myself together. I’ve just buried my daughter—thanks for that.’

Church shook her head. She stumbled across and sat on the edge of the leather couch.  Angel sat up, her bare feet tucked under her bum. ‘I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the other women in The Unit.’ She continued in a soft voice, ‘In prison generally. You know what they’re like. They’ve gave you a wee bit of leeway, but after the funeral that door is quickly shut.’

‘I can take care of myself,’ Angel said sharply. She reached out and stroked the top of Adam’s hair. ‘And Adam.’

‘OK.’ Church held the flats of her hands up in surrender. ‘But I’ve seen it before. Women that are emotionally fragile—’

‘Aye, tell about it.’ Angel stared at the telly and didn’t look up as Church left and quietly closed the door.

She thought back to that moment weeks later. She sat a bench in the kitchen and watched the washing machine whirl and slosh Adam’s favourite shirt about, the blue cotton one with a bright red star on the chest. It was mixed with his other clothes and her fluffy nightgown.  She hadn’t been sleeping much and it calmed her doing practical things at night when everybody else was sleeping.

A door opened and she heard the burst of house music grow louder and the slosh of slippers. Toyah pushed the door open a crack with her foot and peeked in.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she folded her arms.

Angel bit her lip and looked beyond the stack of uncurling ringlets to the dimly lit lobby.

‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any fags?’ she said.

Angel glanced at the twenty pack of Silk Cut on the table, her lighter on top of it, beside the ashtray. ‘I’ve only got a few and they’ve got to last me until payday.’

‘Looks like a full packet to me.’

The washing machine went into a spin, the floor vibrating with a juddering noise as one of the legs on the machine was slightly off. Angel turned sideways and cocked her head. She spoke slowly, enunciating every word. ‘I’ve-already-told-you, they’ve-got-to-last-me-‘til-tomorrow.’    

‘I only want one,’ she muttered.

Angel held her gaze, shook her head.

‘I’ll gie you it back.’

Angel picked up the packet of cigarettes and moved them along the table. Toyah stomped into the kitchen and slid into the seat beside her, lifting the packet of cigarettes.

‘Ta,’ she said, lighting one.

‘No problem.’ Angel rose up from the table, skirted around the table and picked up the plastic washing basket she’d left on top of the freezer, beside it a packet of Daz with the serrated red top cut off, prisoner rations she’d brought into the kitchen. She waited for the machine to finish the spin cycle and it was rattling down and coming to a halt.

Toyah stared at her in a way that seemed habitual, a smirk curling her lips, a flesh- coloured bra barely holding her big boobs in her housecoat and splashing on the table as she toyed with Angel’s packet of cigarettes, picking them up and letting them drop.

Angel crouched and opened the drum, sorting through the washing. The smell of Adam sanitised, she sorted through the dribs and drabs with a half-smile.

‘You got any other stuff?’ asked Toyah.

‘Stuff?’ Angel narrowed her eyes, rising to her feet, folding the last of the washing and hitching the basket against her hip.

‘Aye, you know.’ Toyah breathed out smoke, it licked around her fat face. ‘Easy enough to get in. A Kendal eggs isn’t just for white chocolate.’

‘They test you.’

‘Och, get somebody else to pee for you.’

‘Blood tests?’

She shrugged, a hollow laugh. ‘There’s always a way. They need to get the medics in and there’s too few of them. It’s crazy over there.’

She meant behind the walls of the big prison. The Mother and Baby Unit was a lark to her. A get-out-of-jail card. She was on her last written warning, loud music, not going to her work in The Educational Unit and most damning of all, neglecting her daughter.

A pale little girl that Angel gravitated towards, changing her nappy and even feeding her when Toyah took one of her ‘sicky stomachs’, but her mother didn’t like it. Didn’t like the attention her daughter got, when she was ignored.

‘You don’t like me,’ Toyah said.

‘Not much,’ admitted Angel.  

‘Ah well,’ she stood up, dismissing her with a wave. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll mind me taking a few fags for later?’

She lifted the packet of Silk Cut and lighter and put them in the side pocket of her gown.

Angel dropped the basket and stepped forward to meet her at the door. ‘Aye, I dae mind.’

Toyah screamed, ‘Yah wee cow!’ Grabbed at her hair, but her hands slipped off.

Angel stuck the head on her Toyah’s nose, it bloomed red and Toyah tripped backwards and sideway over the bench. Toyah scrambled to get up, elbows flapping and hands reaching for the bench. Angel kicked her in the face, catching her cheek, her head bending to the side, with an ‘ow’ sound escaping from her mouth. When she tried to get up again, Angel kicked her even harder. She sunk into a spot near the wall with her arms up over her head sobbing.

One of the older mothers bustled along the lobby, looked in and seeing Angel standing on top of the bench and Toyah cowering below her, turned turtle and just as quickly went back to her room, the door shutting with a click.

‘Fags?’ said Angel to Toyah, with a give-me flap of her hand and wrist.

Toyah’s hand trembled as she reached into her pocket and held up the cigarette packet.

‘Lighter,’ demanded Angel.

She stuffed them into her pockets. Hearing the gallop of feet on the stairs, Angel darted across the hall and into her room and shut the door behind her. Turning the light off.

Adam was still sleeping in his cot. She eyed the pram beside the window, the glow from the lights liiuminating barbed wire giving her enough light to see.  Loud music from next door, Toyah’s room, gave her the cover she needed, ransacking the wardrobe and filling a holdall with baby stuff. She checked her purse, under a fiver in change, and stuffed it into her bag. Put on her thick coat she’s worn to the funeral and rolled into bed and pulled the blankets up and over her neck.

Her room door opened and a head popped in. Angel mimed heavy breathing and sleeping. She waited a few seconds and the door shut. Listened for staff to check on the woman with two kids next door to her. The creak of the door opening and shutting, a muffled, ‘what is it?’

All along the hall doors were being opened and prisoners checked. She waited for what seemed hours under the blankets, until she could hear the heavy feet of the ambulance men in the hallway.

She padded across and opened the door a crack, looking into the kitchen. An ambulance woman in dayglow stripes and lettering on her uniform had Toyah propped up on the end of the bench, her face bloodied and swollen. The head of one of the nightshift workers popped into view and back out again. A curly-haired policeman in uniform sat at the end of the bench. He nursed a red mug with both hands, steam rising from it and she could hear his walkie-talkie crackling.

She brought the holdup from the wardrobe and unzipped it, putting her bag and purse inside it and kicked it in beside the door.

The mat was already out to change Adam beside the fireplace, with wipes and a new nappy. He cried as she lived him from his cot, still groggy with sleep. She stroked his head and neck and he turned his head right and left and a pudgy arm waved about and he gurgled contently.

She picked him up when he was changed and opened the door, looking along the lobby. Picking up the bag she hurried to the stairs, a baby in one hand, holdall in the other. Footsteps were climbing the stairs, but it was too late to turn back. She squeezed in at the wall, letting the holdall drop and back-heeling it and keeping her face straight.

One of the nightshift agency staff ambled up the stairs, yawning.

‘Just gonnae use the phone,’ she said, brightly.

He nodded, paid her no mind, shuffling past, a hint of booze on his breath. Staff were used to seeing her prowling about at night, talking on the phone to Tony.

She hurried down the stairs and picked up the receiver, looking across and checking the door to the office was closed.

She put down the receiver, opened the front door and ran down to the steps clutching Adam and the holdall. Her bright hair glowing in lamplight and drizzly rain. An ambulance man with a moustache sat in the driver’s seat glanced at her, but she kept walking, quickly, trying not to run and attract attention to herself.