On My Life Page 3

  The engine starts again. I’m going somewhere else? A different prison? No one explained. The road and fields outside blur behind my tears.

  It’s growing dark by the time the van slows and I hear the ominous tick, tick, tick of the indicator. My bladder is screaming.

  We pass through a perimeter brick wall, old, Victorian maybe, curling up like a clawed hand, with barbed wire jagged fingernails along the top. And cameras. It reminds me of a black-and-white still of a concentration camp, or the Berlin Wall. I haven’t got any contemporary references. I’ve never been to a prison before.

  We’re on a driveway. The March frost covers the surrounding scrubland, rendering everything an eerie grey. The van turns on the winding approach and I gasp. My tiny window momentarily frames the prison.

  It looms out of the ground, dominating the landscape. HMP Fallenbrook is notorious. I’ve seen it in the papers. A mountainous chunk of black bricks that the Victorians barely tamed to instil fear into people. The building itself, with its gothic spiked roof and small slatted windows, was supposed to act as a deterrent. I can see strangled, writhing gargoyles around the top, burning, stretched, and repenting in a perpetual hell of pain. I can’t be locked up here. There must be a mistake. This place is for criminals. Psychopaths.

  The van swings on along the drive and the ever-darkening sky fills my view.

  The sound of the van’s wheels on the road reverberates through me, a rat-a-tat-tat warning to run.

  The engine cuts. Don’t show fear. The back door is unlocked. There’s the familiar lilt as someone boards. I try to square myself, ready. Kick the sock aside. Ignore the shameful flush I can feel creeping over my skin. My teeth are furred, my mouth raw. I must reek. Doesn’t matter. Can’t do anything about it now.

  Heavy steps approach my cell door. It’s her, I can tell. One of her boots squeaks as it slides along the floor.

  The bolt is pulled across. The door opens. I force myself to keep my eyes locked on her face.

  Her nose wrinkles as the smell of the cell – of me – hits her. She looks amused. ‘Ready, Princess?’

  Not at all. But I’m not showing her that. What would the girl who walked through the Orchard Park estate like she owned it do? I lean forwards and smile. ‘Bring it.’

  Shock flickers on her face for a second. This Cotswold ‘princess’ isn’t quite who she thought. ‘Move it,’ she snarls.

  Shapes form in the brittle light. Stone statues of beasts, one missing its head, flank the imposing double-height doorway. A greying carved buttress snakes round the entrance making it look hooded. Inside glows with the same sickly blue light of an NHS hospital.

  ‘Welcome to your new home,’ the female guard hisses behind me. ‘It’ll be a long time till you see the outside world again. If ever.’

  I didn’t do it. I look up to see a bird disappearing over the high building. Panic closes her fingers over my throat. Why didn’t I spend longer looking out the window, drinking in the normality, when I had the chance?

  I didn’t do it. Either side of the stone statues, like fleshy knock-offs, stand two male officers in navy and blue uniforms. Both with blank faces. Fat fingers tucked into their key belts. I didn’t know female prisons had male guards. I don’t know anything about this. I like being prepared. When I was a teen I’d watch other people, people not like us, and see what they did. How they acted. That’s how I became me. That’s how I assimilated. I’ve only seen those two male prisoners. I haven’t seen enough. I haven’t learnt enough.

  The female guard pushes my shoulder and I stumble inside. The reception reminds me of the police station. I’d never been in one before two days ago. It’s a small, shabby waiting room, with a high desk. The chairs along the wall are screwed down. A chunk is missing from one of the plastic seats, as if an animal has taken a bite from it.

  Behind the desk is another male guard, straight up and down, except for his pot belly, which rests on the desk like a balanced bag of shopping. Are there any female staff here? I feel exposed in my flimsy T-shirt. It doesn’t radiate control, or strength, or any of the things I desperately need to project.

  The male guard is looking at something on the desk. ‘No need to ask your name,’ he says. ‘Our celebrity guest.’

  Huh? ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Sorry,’ mimics the female guard in a high-pitched whine. ‘Don’t let this one give you any gyp, Kev.’

  Are they trying to unnerve me? ‘My name is Jennifer Burns.’

  The guard called Kev emits a gruff guffaw. My stomach twists. ‘I know who you are,’ he says.

  I see it as he lifts the newspaper on his desk. The photo on the front page. Me at a barbecue with Robert last summer. It was on my friend’s Facebook. It was hot, I’d been in the kitchen. My cotton dress was thin, slightly too tight, too low. I never wore it again. With the photo blown up this size you can see the faint outline of a nipple.

  ‘Nice titties.’ He grins.

  In the photo I have my hand looped casually round Robert’s waist. If I close my eyes I can smell him, feel him. He looks tanned and gorgeous, in a simple blue T-shirt and khaki shorts. He’s looking at me with adoration as I smile at the camera. It makes me seem uninterested in him. It is the perfect photo for what they want to achieve. I feel the floor undulate under my feet. Splashed across the top of the front page is:

  Lethal Attraction: Blonde slayer accused of killing 14-year-old stepdaughter. Fiancé still missing.

  Then

  ‘A second date already?’ Becky squeals. She drops the pile of papers she’s carrying onto her desk, and jumps up to sit on the edge of mine, like a gossipy pixie.

  ‘It’s just dinner.’ I’m trying to play it cool, but the ridiculous grin on my face is probably giving me away.

  ‘At his!’ She claps excitedly.

  I let the joy I’ve been feeling bubble out of me. ‘Yes! He’s going to cook!’ I’ve never really had a man cook for me before. I lived with a guy for a year after uni, but we mostly ate cereal while we carved out our careers. We were too broke to buy anything more.

  ‘I should think so too, after he made you eat in a field on your first date.’ Becky’s freckled face scrunches in distaste. She measures her prospective partners’ worth on how many stars the restaurant they suggest taking her to has. But I’m not interested in all that. I mean, I can do the fine-dining thing if I have to, for work, but I’ve never really been comfortable there.

  ‘It was romantic, different,’ I say, remembering how Robert and I had sat on the grass, sipping champagne and eating our hedgerow feast as the sun turned the sky from gold to orange to pink to red. As it finally dipped into the twilight blue of night, I shivered. Robert placed his coat round my shoulders and we kissed. Did I make the first move or did he? It was somewhere in the middle. Natural.

  ‘You mean it was cheap!’ Becky cackles.

  ‘Money isn’t everything,’ Sally chides from her desk. ‘Eddie is quite broke,’ she adds, of her latest beau.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Becky. ‘And quite twenty-five years younger than you.’

  Sally smiles like the cat that got the cream. ‘Like I said, money isn’t everything.’

  ‘You going straight there?’ Becky says as she trudges back to her desk.

  ‘He’s coming to collect me after work.’ My stomach buzzes at the thought. Those damn butterflies have taken up the Macarena.

  ‘There, Sally, you’ll get a look at him after all,’ Becky says.

  ‘As long as he’s treating my Jenna how she deserves, he’s fine with me,’ Sally says, without looking up.

  I know Sally’s playing it cool herself; she won’t be able to resist having a nosey. I’ve told Robert to stay in the car and I’ll come out. He’s passed the decision about which recruitment company they’ll use over to the Milcombe board. I should probably feel more conflicted than I do, but I just feel excited. I know I’m being daft, it’s only been one date, but it was the way we talked about everything. The state of American polit
ics. The state of ours here. What we wanted to do in the future. All the places we’d love to see. Where we went to uni. He studied agriculture, which was no surprise given the baby cows. I did business studies, mostly because I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that age. I told him I’d never even heard of a recruitment consultant till I graduated. And I stayed away from any conversations about childhood. I’m well practised at leaving out all the messy details. You can find common ground without all of that anyway. And Robert made it easy. He loved Danger Mouse as a kid and I loved Penfold. It turns out we’ve been to loads of the same exhibitions at The Wilson in Cheltenham, and we both love the Sherborne sculpture walk. It’s a wonder we haven’t bumped into each other before. Maybe we almost did. Maybe our meeting was fated.

  I look at the clock. Three hours, seventeen minutes and eleven seconds till Robert is picking me up. I can’t stop the smile from colonising my face.

  5.31 p.m. and my phone bleeps. I’m up in seconds. I’ve already got my jacket on.

  ‘Oh!’ Sally looks at the clock. ‘Is he not coming in?’

  Becky pulls a comic shocked face. ‘You minx!’

  But I’m already at the door. ‘See you tomorrow, ladies!’

  I skip down the stone steps of the office. A car horn toots and I spy Robert in a battered Range Rover that looks like it’s a relic from the last war. I wave and dash to the passenger’s side. Behind me the blinds of the office twitch and two faces appear at the window.

  Robert leans over to open the door. The car smells of dogs and warm baked bread.

  ‘Hiya.’ I suddenly feel shy.

  ‘I see we’ve got an audience.’ He nods toward Sally and Becky.

  Becky is making kissy faces. They’re so embarrassing! ‘They’re just cross I didn’t invite you in.’

  He grins. ‘Do I need to keep them on side?’

  ‘Absolutely. Otherwise I’m afraid they will kill you. Sally has a lot of land to hide the body on,’ I say, deadpan, clambering in.

  ‘The Cotswolds Mafia. I’ve been warned.’ He gives them a wave. Becky immediately ducks back out of sight, but Sally doesn’t move. There’s something in her look that I can’t quite place as Robert pulls away. My phone beeps in my hand: a message from Sally. My stomach shifts.

  ‘So, did you have a good day?’ Robert is talking to me.

  Why would Sally message me? I blink. I get car-sick so quickly I can’t look at the message now. Don’t want to. Whatever Sally has to say can wait. I drop my phone into my bag. ‘Yeah, great. You? Oh. I almost forgot . . .’ I pull out a bottle of champagne. ‘I brought a bottle. My turn this time.’

  ‘That will go perfectly with supper,’ he grins.

  We’re on the road out of town. ‘You haven’t actually told me where you live.’ I probably should have asked that before getting into the car with him. But I don’t feel threatened. I feel comfortable. I ignore the strange look I’ve just seen on Sally’s face.

  ‘In Broadpass. It’s about twenty minutes away.’

  That’s near the Milcombe Estate. He could have a flat on site. Is that what hotel staff do?

  You mean it was cheap. Becky’s words pop into my head.

  He glances at me. Oh god, I didn’t respond. ‘Is that okay?’ He sounds unsure.

  ‘Of course!’ I don’t care if he does live on site. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

  He signals and we pull out onto the A44. ‘You’re in Middleway, yes?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s just a two-bed flat, but I love it.’ What if his place is smaller than that? What if it’s a room and I’ve made him feel bad? But Robert doesn’t look anything other than thrilled to have me here and I soon relax, watching the fields open around us like flower petals.

  Just before the turning for the Milcombe Estate he signals. I knew it. He does live on site. I hope he doesn’t share a flat. That’s a terrible thing to think, but I can’t cope with meeting a flatmate now. He would have told me if there was going to be someone else there, wouldn’t he?

  Trees kiss overhead and we bump across the cattle grid that separates the estate from the road. ‘How many properties have they got now?’ I know this from my work research before our initial meeting, but I feel it’d be rude not to ask.

  ‘Well there’s Field House . . .’

  ‘I’ve been there for a spa day with my mum and sister,’ I say.

  ‘Did you like it?’ he asks. Again, doubt has crept into his voice.

  ‘Are you kidding? It was stunning. I would love to stay someday.’ Though it’s a bit out of my price range.

  ‘I can probably help with that,’ he says with a laugh.

  I clap my hand over my mouth. I can’t believe I said that. He’ll think I’m fishing for a discount. ‘I didn’t mean to sound like I was . . .’ Or maybe he’ll think I’m after a night in the hotel with him. I blush. I imagine lying on a big soft bed, Robert’s lips moving down my neck, over my chest, down my stomach . . . I feel heat between my legs. My blush deepens.

  He laughs. ‘I’m glad you liked it.’

  Now I can’t stop thinking about me and Robert in a hotel room. Ahead the road turns into the Field House car park, the top of the house visible between the trees. But he drives past. Still climbing up the hill. Maybe there’s separate staff accommodation? Or perhaps he’s based at the new conference hotel? ‘It’s going to be called The Heron, isn’t it? The one you’re recruiting for?’ I hope he can’t tell from my voice what I’ve just been imagining. I cough. Subtle.

  ‘Yup. And we’ve already got The Barns, which is a conference complex. This is like an extension.’

  ‘Cool,’ I say.

  He laughs. ‘You don’t really want to hear about work, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘I would like to know how the baby cows are, though.’ I think about it. ‘Wait, are they for the restaurant?’ I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Please tell me they’re for team-building exercises or something?’

  ‘You’re not vegetarian, are you?’ His eyes widen.

  ‘No.’ I just hadn’t made the possible connection between them and dinner. You live in the middle of the countryside, Jenna. You’re surrounded by farms. You sound like an idiot. I imagine what Robert looks like topless working in a field. Like a blond Poldark. I open the window.

  ‘We were about to have an issue with dinner if you were,’ he says. ‘The calves are for dairy.’

  We only kissed on our first date, and held hands. It was charming at the time, but maybe Robert doesn’t fancy me that much? I can’t stop fantasising about him. I see The Barns sail past. The Range Rover bumps as it climbs.

  ‘That’s the Heron site,’ he points as we pass the new hotel.

  As we crest the top of the hill, the whole of the valley opens up alongside us, providing the hotels with amazing views. We’re also reaching the edge of the estate. The hedge that borders it snakes up toward us, meeting at a carved stone entrance that must be a relic from when it was built. It’s gated now. Robert stops the car in front of it.

  ‘Sorry, I just need to get the thingy.’ He reaches over me to the glove compartment.

  I greedily inhale his scent of basil and cedarwood. His arm touches my bare knee.

  ‘Sorry.’ He smiles at me sheepishly.

  I can’t answer. Can’t trust myself to sound normal. I want him to kiss me. To touch me. He’s going to think you’re an idiot. Speak! I giggle.

  He points something at the gate. It’s a fob. The metal bars roll to the side. Where are we? He puts the Range Rover in gear and drives forwards, the gate rolls closed behind us. This is a lot of security for staff.

  The road curves round in front of us and all I can think of are the opening credits of Downton Abbey. A huge country house appears to the left, much bigger than Field House. It looks like a National Trust property. I had no idea this was here.

  He sees me staring. ‘That’s my parents’ house,’ he says.

  I inhale sharply. He’s joking, right? The driveway branche
s off, and we turn away from the mansion.

  Through the trees, I catch glimpses of another house, Georgian, I would guess from the six large rectangular windows. It’s as big as the hotel at the bottom of the hill. Robert stops the car. This can’t be his place? My hands are shaking. He’s a hotel manager. He likes cows. He drives a battered car. He watched Danger Mouse.

  He pops his belt, opens the door and climbs down.

  I grew up in a one-bed council flat on the Orchard Park estate. I’m not supposed to be here.

  ‘Ready?’ He gives me a warm smile. ‘I promise not to give you food poisoning.’

  ‘Sure,’ I manage. ‘Just need to . . .’ I pull my phone out of my bag and wave it at him. This has to be a mistake.

  As he walks round to open the door on my side, I shakily open the message from Sally. It says: That’s Robert Milcombe – his family own the whole estate!

  Now

  Horror and anger flood through me and I want to rip the paper from his hands. How dare they print that! They don’t know me. They don’t know Robert. ‘I love Robert. And Emily . . . I could never hurt them.’ My voice wavers.

  ‘Save it for court, Princess,’ the female guard says.

  I’m on the front page. I’m recognisable. Do they have newspapers in here? Everyone will think I’m the Blonde Slayer. A child killer. ‘Will I be given protection?’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘We don’t have budget for bodyguards.’

  Fear drips down my spine. ‘There must be a procedure?’

  ‘Procedure? Sure. We’ll give you a new crime, a cover story if you like. Drugs, usually. You can tell people you were a party girl,’ he laughs.

  ‘But that’s my photo – the other prisoners will know!’ I know what they do to child killers. I saw it on the news when Ian Huntley’s throat was slashed.