Beth O'Leary - The Flatshare

One of the guys came to the bar with his girl. There were only two women with the group, and this one looked bored out of her mind, you could just see it. She caught my eye down the bar and started to look a lot more interested.

I looked back. If she’s bored of her bloke, that’s his problem, not mine. I’m not going to miss the chance to make eyes with a pretty lady just because the guy standing next to her looks tougher than the average bloke in Daffie’s, let me tell you that.

He found me later, in the bathroom. Pushed me up against the wall.

‘Keep your hands off, you hear me?’

You know the drill. He was shouting right in my face, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said. Calm as a cucumber.

He shouted a lot more. Pushed me a bit. I stood firm, but I didn’t push back or hit him. He said he’d seen me dancing with her, which wasn’t true. I know she wasn’t one of the girls I’d danced with earlier in the night, I would have remembered her.

Still, he’d wound me up, and when she turned up later, just before the club closed, I was probably more inclined to chat to her than I would have been, just to piss him off.

We flirted. I bought her a drink. The Bloods, out there at the back, talked business and didn’t seem to notice. I kissed her. She kissed me back. I remember I was so drunk I felt dizzy when I closed my eyes, so I kissed her with my eyes open.

And then that was it. She just sort of faded back into the club somewhere — it’s all hazy, I really was plastered. I couldn’t tell you exactly when she left, or I left, or whatever.

From this point on, I can’t verify everything. If I could, obviously I wouldn’t be writing this to you from here, I’d be chilling on your famous beanbag with a cup of Leon’s milky coffee and this would probably just be a funny anecdote I’d tell at the pub.

But anyway. Here’s what I think happened.

They followed me and my mates when we left. The others got night buses, but I didn’t live far, so I walked it. I went into the off-licence on Clapham Road that stays open all night and bought cigarettes and a six-pack of beers. I didn’t even want them — I definitely didn’t need them. It was nearly four in the morning and I was probably not even walking straight. But I went in, paid cash, went home. I didn’t even see them, but they can’t have been far away when I got out of there, because according to the camera in the store ‘I came back in’ two minutes later with my hoody pulled up and a balaclava on.

When you watch the footage, the guy does have a similar build to me. But as I pointed out in court — whoever it is, they’re doing a better job of walking properly than I did. I was way too drunk to be able to dodge the bargain bins and get the knife out of the back of my jeans all at the same time.

I had no idea any of this had happened until two days later when I was arrested at work.

They got the kid at the till to unlock the safe. There was four thousand five hundred pounds in there. They were smart, or maybe just experienced — they didn’t speak any more than they had to, and so when the kid gave evidence she hardly had anything to recount. Other than the knife pointed in her face, obviously.

I was on CCTV. I had a previous criminal record. They pulled me in.

Once I’d been charged they wouldn’t grant me bail. My lawyer took me on because he was interested, and he felt confident in the only witness, the girl at the till, but they got to her as well in the end. We were expecting her to stand up there and say the guy who came in the second time couldn’t have been me. That she’d seen me in the off-licence before and I’d been perfectly nice and not tried to nick anything.

But she pointed at me across the courtroom. Said it was me for sure. It was like a living nightmare, I can’t even tell you. I could just see it playing out, and watch how the jury members’ faces changed, but I couldn’t do anything. I tried to get up and speak and the judge just shouted at me — you’re not allowed to talk out of turn. My turn never seemed to come, though. By the time they got to questioning me, everyone’s mind was made up.

Sal asked me bullshit stupid questions, and I didn’t get the chance to say anything good, my head was all over the place, I just hadn’t thought it would come to that. The prosecution played on my dodgy record from a few years back — I’d got in a couple of fights on nights out when I was nineteen, when I was at my lowest (that’s another story, and I swear it isn’t as bad as it sounds). They made out like I was violent. They even dredged up a guy I used to work with in a café who properly hated me — we’d fallen out over some girl he’d liked in college, who I’d ended up taking to the prom or some other crap like that. It was kind of amazing, watching them spin it. I can see why the jury believed I was guilty. Those lawyers were really fucking good at making it sound true.

They sentenced me to eight years for armed robbery.

So here I am. I can’t even tell you. Every time I write it out or tell it to someone I can’t believe it even more, if that makes sense. All I get is angrier.

It wasn’t a complicated case. We all thought Sal would sort it on appeal. (Sal’s the lawyer, by the way.) But he hasn’t fucking got to the appeal yet. I was sentenced last November and there’s no appeal even in sight. I know Leon is trying to sort it, and I love that man for it, but the fact is nobody gives a shit about getting me out of here except him. And Mam, I guess.

I’ll be honest with you, Tiffy, I’m shaking now. I want to scream. These times are the worst — there’s nowhere to go. Press-ups are your friend, but sometimes you need to run, and when you’ve got three steps between your bed and your toilet, there’s not a lot of room for that.

Anyway. This is a very long letter, and I know it took me a while to write it — you’ve maybe forgotten about the whole conversation we had by now. You don’t have to reply, but if you want to, Leon can send it with his next letter maybe — if you do write, please send stamps and envelopes too.

I hope you believe me, even more than I usually do. Maybe it’s because you’re important to my brother, and my brother is like the only person who is properly important to me.

Yours,

The next morning I reread the letter in bed, the duvet pulled up around me like a nest. I’m all cold in my stomach, and my skin has gone kind of prickly. I want to cry for this man. I don’t know why this is hitting me so hard, but whatever it is, this letter has woken me up at half five on a Saturday morning. That is how much I cannot bear it. It’s so unfair .

I’m reaching for my phone before I’ve really thought about what I’m doing.

‘Gerty, you know your job?’

‘I’m familiar with it, yes. Primarily as the reason that I am awoken at six a.m. almost every morning, bar Saturday mornings.’

I look at the clock. Six a.m.

‘Sorry. But — what kind of law do you do again?’

‘Criminal law, Tiffy. I do criminal law.’

‘Right, right. What does that mean though?’

‘I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is urgent,’ Gerty says. She is audibly gritting her teeth. ‘We deal with crimes that are against people and their property.’

‘Like armed robbery?’

‘Yes. That is a good example, well done.’

‘You hate me, don’t you? I’m top of your hate list right now.’

‘It’s my one lie-in and you’ve ruined it, so yes, you have climbed past Donald Trump and that Uber driver I sometimes get who hums for the whole journey.’

Shit. Things are not going well.