yourself before?
Have you ever scratched yourself?
What are those marks on your chest?
Jesus, Jeremy thought to himself as the booklets were filled in. You’re even punished for wanting to kill yourself in prison – don’t do this, don’t do that, you silly boy, you useless idiot, you’ll be watched for this, four times an hour.
Eventually the uniforms left to confer with each other, and Jeremy was left alone in a cell that was not a suicide cell, and which therefore had sheets, wooden bunks and all the usual trimmings.
20
On the way to work I actively entered the contemplative stage of smoking, whereby the smoker admits their addiction by actually purchasing a packet of their own. It was a necessary step, as my thus-far-fun smoking colleagues had started saying things like ‘I only have two left’ and ‘I’ve just been out’.
Before I made it to my desk, the receptionist handed me a telephone message that read: ‘Call Amanda. It’s urgent.’
‘Jeremy tried to kill himself yesterday,’ Amanda said when I phoned her from the duty room in the main reception area. ‘Can you get me in to see him?’
After making several calls, I collected Amanda from her home and drove to Sandhill.
There’d been six suicides in Sandhill in as many months, very bad PR, and drastic steps were being taken to avoid further overriding the performance target of three suicides a year. Hence the governor allowed us to go into the ‘sui’ cell. Amanda was the first relative allowed inside since a mother came in during a hostage situation in ’98 and told her son to ‘give that girl back NOW!’ (It worked.)
It was the same size and shape as the others – six by eight, cream-painted bricks with some kind of wood chip sprinkled through, arched at the top, but with absolutely nothing in it except a large clock that ticked and tickedand ticked and if you didn’t really want to kill yourself before going in there, you sure as hell did after.
Tick Tick Tick Tick. That’s all the two of us heard as we stood at the door of the concrete cell. Jeremy was huddled in the corner. He was absolutely still, his face covered with his arms. He seemed tiny.
Amanda looked scared. She didn’t recognise him, and didn’t know what to do. I pushed her arm gently towards him, and she moved into his corner of the ring.
She crouched down slowly. He didn’t move. She knelt on the floor. She slowly pressed her head into his neck, and nuzzled, and he groaned. She flung her arms around him, enveloped him, and the two of them fell messily into a pile on the floor, clinging to each other, unable to get close enough, howling.
‘I can’t look at you,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’ve ruined your life. I ruin things.’
‘You haven’t ruined anything,’ Amanda told him.
‘You’ve made my life worth living, and we’ll get through this.’
I was on the verge of tears as I watched them – her trying to get eye contact, him too distraught to give it – and I wanted to leave their intimacy well alone, leave that space. But I wasn’t allowed, and so I stayed as Amanda talked to him. He couldn’t leave her. She needed him. The trial hadn’t even started yet. He’d get off. They’d still be okay. They’d have their honeymoon. He wasn’t to go anywhere, not without her, not without her.
After forty minutes or so, Amanda was asked to leave and I sat with him for a while.
‘You’re going to survive this,’ I said. ‘You have to. You see how much she loves you?’
‘I didn’t kill that woman. But I killed my baby sister. I deserve everything I get.’
‘You have to forgive yourself,’ I said, knowing that he would never be able to deal with the present unless he confronted his past.
‘But how?’ he asked.
I was stumped. How does someone forgive themself?
Did he need to be forgiven by someone else first?
By his dad, who’d fucked off to Canada to a dot.com family not long after Bella died?
His mum, who refused to see him or even
Have you ever scratched yourself?
What are those marks on your chest?
Jesus, Jeremy thought to himself as the booklets were filled in. You’re even punished for wanting to kill yourself in prison – don’t do this, don’t do that, you silly boy, you useless idiot, you’ll be watched for this, four times an hour.
Eventually the uniforms left to confer with each other, and Jeremy was left alone in a cell that was not a suicide cell, and which therefore had sheets, wooden bunks and all the usual trimmings.
20
On the way to work I actively entered the contemplative stage of smoking, whereby the smoker admits their addiction by actually purchasing a packet of their own. It was a necessary step, as my thus-far-fun smoking colleagues had started saying things like ‘I only have two left’ and ‘I’ve just been out’.
Before I made it to my desk, the receptionist handed me a telephone message that read: ‘Call Amanda. It’s urgent.’
‘Jeremy tried to kill himself yesterday,’ Amanda said when I phoned her from the duty room in the main reception area. ‘Can you get me in to see him?’
After making several calls, I collected Amanda from her home and drove to Sandhill.
There’d been six suicides in Sandhill in as many months, very bad PR, and drastic steps were being taken to avoid further overriding the performance target of three suicides a year. Hence the governor allowed us to go into the ‘sui’ cell. Amanda was the first relative allowed inside since a mother came in during a hostage situation in ’98 and told her son to ‘give that girl back NOW!’ (It worked.)
It was the same size and shape as the others – six by eight, cream-painted bricks with some kind of wood chip sprinkled through, arched at the top, but with absolutely nothing in it except a large clock that ticked and tickedand ticked and if you didn’t really want to kill yourself before going in there, you sure as hell did after.
Tick Tick Tick Tick. That’s all the two of us heard as we stood at the door of the concrete cell. Jeremy was huddled in the corner. He was absolutely still, his face covered with his arms. He seemed tiny.
Amanda looked scared. She didn’t recognise him, and didn’t know what to do. I pushed her arm gently towards him, and she moved into his corner of the ring.
She crouched down slowly. He didn’t move. She knelt on the floor. She slowly pressed her head into his neck, and nuzzled, and he groaned. She flung her arms around him, enveloped him, and the two of them fell messily into a pile on the floor, clinging to each other, unable to get close enough, howling.
‘I can’t look at you,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’ve ruined your life. I ruin things.’
‘You haven’t ruined anything,’ Amanda told him.
‘You’ve made my life worth living, and we’ll get through this.’
I was on the verge of tears as I watched them – her trying to get eye contact, him too distraught to give it – and I wanted to leave their intimacy well alone, leave that space. But I wasn’t allowed, and so I stayed as Amanda talked to him. He couldn’t leave her. She needed him. The trial hadn’t even started yet. He’d get off. They’d still be okay. They’d have their honeymoon. He wasn’t to go anywhere, not without her, not without her.
After forty minutes or so, Amanda was asked to leave and I sat with him for a while.
‘You’re going to survive this,’ I said. ‘You have to. You see how much she loves you?’
‘I didn’t kill that woman. But I killed my baby sister. I deserve everything I get.’
‘You have to forgive yourself,’ I said, knowing that he would never be able to deal with the present unless he confronted his past.
‘But how?’ he asked.
I was stumped. How does someone forgive themself?
Did he need to be forgiven by someone else first?
By his dad, who’d fucked off to Canada to a dot.com family not long after Bella died?
His mum, who refused to see him or even
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