Sam Carrington - One Little Lie

‘You don’t have an Aiden Flynn at Baymead, do you?’

She doesn’t realise I know.

I sit here anyway, listening to her. I’ve made a pot of tea and I pour her a cup from the bone china teapot belonging to the set that once sat on my mother’s oak sideboard – reserved for special occasions; people she wanted to impress. I don’t know why I chose to dig it out from the back of the cupboard now. Or why I’m trying to impress this woman. I’m turning into my mother.

‘That’s a lovely picture of Sean,’ she says, gesturing to the large silver-framed photo on the mantelpiece.

I take a deep breath.

‘Yes.’ I force a smile. ‘Would you like a biscuit? I have chocolate digestives or rich tea.’ I want to avoid talking about my son. Even though I know that’s why she’s here.

‘Oh, um … chocolate, please. Although I really should be watching my waistline.’ She pats her belly. There’s no fat on the woman, but I refrain from remarking as I shake out some biscuits from the packet and offer them to her.

‘Thanks for letting me come in,’ she says as she dips the biscuit in her teacup. She leaves a trail of brown slush on its side. I look away. It’s a bone china cup for God’s sake, not a mug.

‘Well, I couldn’t leave you on the doorstep, could I?’ Although that’s exactly what I’d wanted to do at first – her babbling on about her son being at school with my Sean was irritating at best. My lips are tight; the smile harder to come this time. How polite should I be in this situation? A huge part of me doesn’t want to be polite at all – it wants to shout in her face, tell her to get out of my house. But there’s something about her – vulnerable, yet brave. It would be like kicking an inquisitive puppy. It must’ve taken some guts to turn up at my door, even though she’s yet to come clean and tell me who she really is. Didn’t she think I’d recognise her? I thought I’d hardened over the last few years, but the harsh words that spring into my mind – the ones telling this woman exactly what I think of her efforts to squirm her way into my life – evaporate before I can speak them.

Maybe it’s curiosity.

I find myself wanting to know why she thinks it’s a good idea for her to visit the mother of a murdered boy. He was only eighteen. Not even a man. He’d hardly lived, had so much to look forwards to.

She puts her cup and saucer down on the table, and I watch as her pale-blue eyes travel back to Sean’s photograph.

‘You must miss him terribly.’ Her words are quiet, almost inaudible – her face directed away from mine.

My skin is suddenly cold, as though someone has placed a blanket of ice on me. Of course I miss him. He was my only child; my life, up until that terrible day. I’ve had to learn to live without him, carry on with everyday things, all the while knowing my life would never again have meaning. Not the same meaning, anyway. I’m no longer someone’s mum. Tears come at this thought.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed this woman in. Curiosity is not good for me.

I wipe my eyes with my sleeve.

‘Yes, it’s like I have a part of me missing. A hole that will never be filled.’ I can feel a bubble of anger. I should keep a cap on that.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, simply.

‘Oh, so am I. Sorry he ever encountered Kyle Mann. Sorry I wasn’t able to protect him.’ I must be careful, or years’ worth of hatred will erupt in this lounge. Amongst my mother’s bone china tea set. With the smiling face of my handsome Sean staring down at me.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have …’ She shifts awkwardly; she’s flustered. It looks as though she’s thinking about leaving.

‘No. Maybe not. But you’re here now,’ I say firmly. We lock eyes.

‘Yes, it’s taken quite a while to pluck up the courage.’ She gives a wavering smile.

‘Right.’ It’s time to stop the pretence. ‘So now that you’re here, what exactly do you want, Alice?’

‘Well, well. If it isn’t the infamous Connie Moore!’ The voice bellowed from behind the glass partition.

‘Hey, Barry.’ Connie kept her chin low, almost tucked into the collar of her blouse. She didn’t want him to see her discomfort at being back inside the prison. Barry had been an operational support grade for as long as she could remember, and clearly, even given the time she’d been away, her reputation still stood. She’d contemplated giving them her new surname, Summers, which she started using when she set up her own practice to avoid any connections with the Hargreaves case. But she decided it would be a bad idea in this instance. She preferred to keep her prison life in a separate box.

‘I saw you were on the list today. Says here I gotta give Verity a call and get her to come and fetch you, now you haven’t got your own keys and ID. Take a seat, love. Won’t be long.’

Connie turned on her heel and sat heavily on the leather-look bench seat that ran alongside the window of HMP Baymead’s gatehouse and placed her coat beside her. She’d only ever sat here once before: the day she came for her interview, eight years ago. She pulled self-consciously at the cuffs of her sleeves. She even felt like she had all that time ago: nervous, uncertain – questioning whether her skills were up to the job. She kept her eyes down, not wanting to catch a glimpse of anyone else she knew from her previous life there. She didn’t want to face any awkward questions.

Why did I agree to this? Stupid, stupid woman.

Connie pushed her cuff up, checking her watch. It would take at least ten minutes for Verity to reach the gatehouse. Baymead was spread over a wide area, and the psychology block was on the far side of the grounds. She used to love the early morning walk to the office from the gatehouse, when the prisoners were yet to be unlocked. She could stroll along the tree-lined concrete paths, taking her time to let herself through the huge gates. The walk back after her day ended was never quite so pleasant. She’d often time it so her departure didn’t coincide with prisoners going back to the wings after their activities, or work. But even then, if she was on her own, she couldn’t help feeling vulnerable. And the times she’d happened to leave the office when the prisoners were on their way back to their living blocks were more stressful. She didn’t miss that at all.

At least now, for the period she was going to spend here, she’d have someone accompanying her around the prison. She’d have to be let through each gate in the grounds, and have the living-block gates opened for her. She’d be collected from her interviews with the prisoners and taken back to the psychology block.

Connie consciously unclasped her hands, placing them loosely on her lap. This could be all right. It wasn’t as though she was going to be spending enough time within the confines of the establishment to warrant anyone taking much notice of her. And it was almost two years since she’d last been here. Some staff were bound to know her, remember her, but it was unlikely many prisoners would. At least Aiden Flynn, the man responsible for the murder of Ricky Hargreaves last year, was not residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure in Baymead. That had been one of her biggest fears. He was the last person she’d want to come into contact with. Not only was he a cold-blooded murderer, but he also had a personal vendetta against Connie and had been determined to exact revenge on her because of something that her father had done twenty years previously. And he’d almost managed to accomplish his task: attacking Connie in her own home, beating her to the ground. If it wasn’t for Lindsay … Connie shook the memory away. No, the most that would happen is she’d get some attention from being a ‘new’ female about the place. Whistles, some remarks shouted at her – the common response from a proportion of the men – those she could handle.