The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson Page A

was really going on in my life. She knew I had a boyfriend, and she knew I wasn’t always happy, but she didn’t know the ins and outs, the depths my ‘relationship’ with him plummeted to. She didn’t know about Serena. Maybe if she had she would have convinced me to leave, to let Serena have him and to walk away. Run away, knowing how forthright and outright blunt Granny Morag could be. Maybe she would have been the voice of reason in the madness that surrounded Marcus. Or maybe I wouldn’t have listened. Because that’s why you don’t tell those close to you things, isn’t it? You don’t want them to do what good friends and loved ones are meant to do – tell you the truths you don’t want to hear, the truths that would dismantle all your reasons for doing crazy things.
    My hands are shaking as I try to push my key into the first circular lock on the beach hut. It’s rusty. I’m not sure the last time Dad came down here, but it’s rusty and I have to use the tip of my key to scrape away the disintegrated pieces of lock until I can see silver metal. Then I try again. The key finds its way through the rust and other blockages and comes to a rest in its natural home. I jiggle it a little, and then turn. It’s creaky as it moves, but it rotates and the latch it was holding in place slides back. I watch it intently, immersing myself in the experience of freeing a latch, breaking its solid link. Undoing each latch is a sweet experience, something to savour, something to remember. I am making something free, opening it up to the world.
    If only the judge who sent me down me could see me now.
    ‘Never have I seen such a blatant disregard for human life. To torture and then to violently butcher a man of impeccable reputation, who was devoted to his young son and dedicated to teaching is reprehensible. Your attempts to paint your victim as some kind of monster – although ultimately unsuccessful – have not gone unnoticed by the Court and it will be taken into account when it comes to sentencing,’ he boomed at me across the court. The haze of shock at the verdict, at Dad’s departure, at even being there had not cleared so I could only vaguely process what he was saying. ‘In sentencing you, I deem it necessary for you to have the time to understand the gravity of your crime. I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty-five years. If I were able to disallow early release for good behaviour, I would. You have robbed the world of a talented, gentle, kind man, in return you are to repay society with your life.’
    Days, or maybe it was even weeks, later when what he said had sunk in, when the smell and sounds of prison were so overwhelming and I realised that I would be surrounded by this for ever, his words came back to me. Stored up as they had been in my brain until I could understand them. He had not only been carrying out his job, he was actually judging me. He thought he had seen the truth despite everything that had been presented to him in court, he thought he knew ‘my type’ and was making sure he sent a message to all other teenagers out there who thought it a good idea to seduce and murder older men. He thought he knew best and so wasn’t judging the crime, but me. It must have stuck in his craw that Serena got away with it. That there was nothing he could do to throw her away with the rest of society’s trash, too. I bet he had a nice little speech all polished up to deliver and damn her as well.
    Well, he might still get the chance, if things work out for me the way they’re meant to. The way they’re going to – because I’ve found her. I’ve found Serena.
    The hinges creak as I unbolt one door and then push both orange doors wide open, letting in the light, illuminating the dark place into something bright and light and beautiful.
    Fuck you, Mr Judge, look what I’ve got . His little speech, his damnation of me, was indeed too personal and too smoothly