Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

A shoelace hangs off the bar on the blonde girl’s window, but there’s nae fag on it — just an empty knot. Curly moustache is smoking it. Each unit does that. We tie shoelaces to the windows, so you can swing your fag, or joint, or whatever along after lights out.

‘Aye, you’re no gonnae be the smart cunt in there!’ the policeman says.

Focus on his face. It’ll help keep the shrinking back. He’s got green eyes, a squint nose, and the hair on his neck and forearms is thick as a fucking pelt. You’re giving me the boak, fuck-pus. He’s loving this. They’ve wanted me banged up away from town and their stations, for how long? They think if they put me far enough away then I cannae get in trouble. Aye. Okay. There’s still buses, fanny-heads, I umnay behind locked doors yet.

The policeman is watching me in his rear-view mirror. He gave me a stoater of a slap yesterday. Old radgio el fuckmong, I call him, old cunt-pus himself.

‘Smile, Anais, it’s a palatial country house, this!’

He gestures at the unit. It looks like a prison. It was one, once. And a nuthouse. He smirks again. I wish he was in a fucking coma.

The polis dinnae get it — we compare notes just as much as they do. We know if there’s a psycho in a unit, or a right bastard pig who’ll always batter you at the station. We know if somebody’s been stabbed, or hanged themselves, or who’s on the game, or which paedos in town will lock you in their flat and have you gang-banged until you turn fucking tricks. We send e-mails, start legends — create myths. It’s the same in the nick or the nuthouse: notoriety is respect. Like, if you were in a unit with a total psycho and they said you were sound? Then you’ll be a wee bit safer in the next place. If it’s a total nut that’s vouched for you, the less hassle you’ll get. I dinnae need tae worry about any of that. I am the total nut.

We’re just in training for the proper jail. Nobody talks about it, but it’s a statistical fact. That or on the game. Most of us are anyway — but not everybody. Some go to the nuthouse. Some just disappear.

The policeman unbuckles his seatbelt and checks there’s nothing worth choring on the dash.

‘Here we go.’ He opens his door.

One of the girls whistles, long and low.

‘Less of that,’ he glares up.

‘I wasnae whistling at you, pal,’ she says.

The baseball-cap lassie spits.

‘Dinnae give your mind a treat, we meant the hot one!’

They’re still giggling when he rams his hat on and clicks open my door. The policeman guides me up, hand on my head, turns me around — beeps the car alarm on.

The blonde girl lets her long globule of saliva fall away. The polis walk either side of me. I keep my shoulders back, my gaze even — almost serene. I dinnae walk with a swagger, just a certainty. As we reach the main door, I look up and it passes between us: the glint, it’s strong as sunlight and twice as bright. They can feel it in me. It can start a riot in seconds, that glint. It could easily kill a man.

I give the lassies my sweetest smile and lift an imaginary hat as a salute.

‘Ladies!’

The blonde girl grins at me. The policeman takes my elbow and steers me under the porch where they cannae see, and he rings the bell and I stamp my feet lightly, once, twice. I already know what it’ll smell like in there. Bleach. Cleaning products. Musty carpets. Cheap shite. Every unit smells the same.

There’s wire through the front windows but not the side ones. They’ll be easier tae smash. I try to breathe easy, but I want these fucking cuffs off, and my neck aches, and I’m starving. I want a milkshake and a vege-burger with cheese.

The policeman rings the bell again. My heart’s going. I’ve moved fifty-one fucking times now, but every time I walk through a new door I feel exactly the same — two years old and ready tae bite.

It’s open-plan inside. Nowhere to hide. That sucks. The Officer in Charge waddles towards us; she’s got a shiny bowl-cut, stripy socks, flat red shoes, and a ladybird brooch on her cardy.

‘Hello, hello, you must be Anais. Come in, officers, please come in. Did you get lost?’ she ushers us through the door.

‘Noh, we’re later than intended, sorry about that. We didnae want tae hold Anais’s transfer up, but it couldnae be helped,’ the policeman says.

He smiles and takes his hat off. He’s such a two-faced fuck.

‘We thought Anais was arriving yesterday,’ the Officer in Charge says.

She witters to the polis and I trail along behind them, turning around once, twice, looking at every single detail — it’s important to place where everything is. So nobody can walk up behind you.

This whole building is in a big curve, like the shape of a C, and along the curve on the top floor are six locked black doors. The two landings below have another six identical doors on each floor, but they’ve been painted white, and none of them are closed. I heard they dinnae close the doors in here except after lights out. It’s meant tae be good for us, ay. How is that good? Even from down here you can see bits of people’s posters in their rooms, and a kid sitting on a bed, and one putting on his socks.

Each of those bedrooms used to be a cell. Embedded in each door frame there are wee black circles where the bars were sawn off. I wonder why they kept nutters in cells? I suppose it was so each inmate could only see the watchtower, they couldnae see their neighbours. Divide and conquer.

Kids begin to step out of their rooms and look down. I count them out of the corner of my vision — one, two, three, four, five. A boy with curly hair and glasses begins to kick the Perspex balcony outside his door. I dinnae look up. There will be time for all the nice fucking hello-and-how-do-you-dos later.

Right in the middle of the C shape, as high as the top floor, is the watchtower. There is a surveillance window going all the way around the top and you cannae see through the glass, but whoever, or whatever, is in there can see out. From the watchtower it could see into every bedroom, every landing, every bathroom. Everywhere.

This place has experiment written all over it.

My social worker said they were gonnae make all the nuthouses and prisons like this, once. The thought of it pleased her, I could tell. Helen reckons she’s a liberal, but really — she’s just a cunt.

The ground floor is mostly open-plan; there’s a lounge to the right of the main door, and opposite that four tables make a dining space in the corner. Three doors lead off the main room, probably to the laundry, interview rooms, maybe a games room — if that’s a pool table I can see through there! There’s a telly screwed to the wall so nobody can chore it. The DVD player will be in the office, same reason.

They’ve painted everything magnolia and it all smells like shite deodorant, and stale fag smoke, and BO, and skanky, fucking-putrid soup.

At the end of the main room, opposite the door to the office, there is a wee ornate wooden door, one of the only original things left in here. I’ll investigate what’s through there later. This place would have been nicer once, more Gothic. It’s been social-work-ised, though, it’s depressing as fuck.

The polis come tae a halt outside the office door, and the Officer in Charge goes in. I scan the ground floor, and tap my feet, and clink my cuffs together until the policewoman leans over and says: Stop .

The office door opens, and they let us in. The Officer in Charge must have been waiting on the staff finishing their changeover, but it’s obvious they havenae. There’s too many staff in here, last shifts, and this shift. I dinnae like it. I feel bare, like my skin’s missing. My skin doesnae even feel like mine half the time. They shouldnae be putting me through a handover with this many staff in the office.