Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

‘Up to your rooms then, girls, it’s past bedtime,’ she says.

We follow her up the stairs, and Shortie’s crying again. We walk past Tash’s bedroom door, then Isla’s. Someone has stripped Isla’s bed. Her posters are still up on the walls, though.

We don’t want to let go of each other’s hand, we just stand at my bedroom door and the night-nurse looks at us, then she has a quick scan downstairs.

‘Just for tonight, until things settle down,’ she says, and she ushers us both into my room and pulls the door almost closed behind us.

I give Shortie an old T-shirt — she hauls it on and curls up at the bottom of my bed like a wee cat.

There’s a spider with a steel web; it weaves quickly, and Isla is in the middle — stuck. Each steel wire slices her. The spider casts out more and more threads of steel in an intricate pattern. I want to kill the spider, but she’s got my head. She rubs her legs together ready tae spin my body further in. She will cocoon me; my legs are still twitching, but soon they will be paralysed.

I wake — drenched, my heart batters off my chest. Shrinking. Shrinking. Shrinking. I’m a wee fucking pinprick.

The curtains sway to and fro on the wall. I am still falling and the floor is swaying — everything is swaying, and this isnae a flashback, it’s the other side. The veil’s getting thinner. Every year it gets less hidden, that other world — it’s always there, waiting, until eventually we see it.

There’s patterns all over my walls, Victorian swirls with delicate bars across them. Tash and Isla are in there — wrapped in each other’s arms. Isla reaches out from the wall. She wants me to know that this pain is good, that I have to feel it.

Peel my top off and push my legs down and hit something soft. It’s Shortie; her chest rises and falls. She’s so wee, and her skinhead is growing in — her fringe is all tufted up. I brush it back. Her forehead is hot and her skin is clammy. She took some of Pat’s Valium earlier, to stop her shaking.

There’s a lump in my throat, a pressure pushing up, that’s been there for how many years? Sobs begin in my whole body, spasms head-tae-toe. I clamp my hands over my mouth so I dinnae wake Shortie. My mouth is wide open, and I’m crying so hard I begin to silently retch. Hours pass. The sun comes up. I cannae see. My face is swollen and I cannae stop sobbing. Shortie’s still asleep. I nudge her. Nothing.

‘Are you asleep?’

I’m shrinking to a tiny pinprick, I’m so wee that I can hardly hear my voice as it says something I have never, ever heard it say.

‘I just want my mum.’

Shortie bolts up. Just like that. Like she’s waited there quiet all fucking night, knowing I had to say something and I’d never fucking say it if anyone else was there to hear it. She knows just like I do, this is the only time in my entire life that I will say those words out loud.

‘It’s okay,’ she says, pulling me in close and holding me, while I sob.

‘WHY DOES YOUR room smell of vanilla?’ Joan asks me.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it a perfume?’

‘Probably.’

‘You took vanilla essence from the kitchen, didn’t you?’

‘Nope.’

Joan is jittery — they cannae get me to speak half the time lately, but she knows I want the rest of my clothing allowance, so now she’s pushing me for conversation. She’s not fucking stupid. I need more cash, I’m getting out. I am not leaving here in a body bag, not here, not John Kay’s. Not anywhere.

If I can get the rest of my clothing allowance then I’ll have three hundred quid. Click, click, click. Jay wants me to go out there in about an hour; we can get totally and utterly fucked up. I’ve already started on Pat’s wraps.

‘I was speaking tae Jamie at your last unit,’ Joan says.

‘Aye.’

‘He said you’d started a lot of riots there.’

‘So.’

‘He said you were a total nightmare. I told him you have been as good as gold in here.’

‘When’s the funeral?’ I ask her.

‘Monday.’

‘What’s the coroner doing with Isla?’

‘Just verifying all the details. Try and not think about it, Anais.’

‘You do know Tash’s dead?’

‘Why’d you say that?’ Joan looks at me. She’s got big bags under her eyes. She looks like shit.

‘She wouldnae have left Isla.’

‘We don’t know that, Anais.’

‘I do. What did Isla’s mum take earlier?’

‘She just collected some of her old possessions, teddies and things like that.’

‘Do the twins know?’

Joan nods. She kneels down at my chest of drawers. She’s relieved to hear me speak, she doesnae like it when any of us go quiet.

She opens my bottom drawer and lifts up a T-shirt. Shit! A brick of chocolate falls out. Joan picks it up. There are bite marks all over one end, where I’ve been eating that instead of meals.

‘Anais, what is this?’

‘I dunno.’

I turn away because I’m smiling.

She stands up with the giant chocolate block in her hands.

‘Seriously, what is this?’

Jesus — I cannae believe I forgot to hide that!

‘It’s a protest, Joan. Bring it up at changeover. I am protesting at the lack of vegetarian options; also at enforced menus by the chef; also at the way we have tae live here — watched by that fucking thing twenty-four fucking hours a day!’

I point at the watchtower. Joan takes the big bar of chocolate and the T-shirt it was wrapped in — I swear she’s trying not tae smile.

‘You’ll get this T-shirt back once it’s been washed.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Are you going tae read something at Isla’s funeral?’ she asks.

‘No.’

I am not going to read anything. It’s not my place; it would have been Tash’s, but she’s not here and I cannae speak for her.

If Tash was murdered, they’ve not found her. She must have been murdered — it’s that wee horrible grain of truth that you just know in your bones. When I found Teresa in the bath, I couldnae see where the blood had come from, I couldnae see if she’d done it herself — but I knew she hadn’t. You just do.

You do strange things when you find someone you love dead. I walked through to the living room and got her cigarettes. I thought I’d take her one, and maybe a glass of gin. In the living room I looked out from our window, down to the car park, and I saw this black dot, moving away, a big black dot. I kept watching and another one appeared behind it, and an arm appeared out from the black dot, and it gestured to the other one.

They looked up, and saw me, two men, black wide-rimmed hats, empty spaces where their noses should be.

I’M BEING WATCHED through the trees, but it doesnae bother me. The woods are almost empty now it’s winter — just the odd dog walker and nobody else around. I come out by the wooden stile and cross the road.

There’s a wee jeweller’s right up the top of the village — I’m going there first. I have to pass by the gate where Tash and Isla would sit for a smoke. In fact, I’ll avoid it; I’ll go past on the way back.

The jeweller’s shop is all lit up and the doorbell chimes when I walk in.

‘Hello.’

‘I was wondering if you could put a hole in something for me?’ I ask the guy.

‘What’s that, dear?’

The man puts his specs on and I slide the domino across the desk. Double four.

‘Oh, I see. It’s a well-worn one, isn’t it? Yes, I could put a hole in the top if you like.’

‘Ta, can you do it now or …?’

‘Come back on Monday.’

He writes a receipt for what it will cost and hands it to me.

Walk through the car park by the village hall, and light a fag when I get near the woods. I can hear shouts — someone’s getting totally leathered further down. Great! That’s the last thing I need tae see. That speed Pat gave me is well strong, I shouldn’t have taken a whole wrap in one go. I want tae avoid going past them, all jeering at some fight inside their circle, but that would mean going the long way.