Authors: Julie Parsons
Oh no, not I,
I will survive,
As long as I know how to love
I know I’ll stay alive.
Waiting for the voices of the men. Roaring the chorus back at them.
I’ve got all my life to live,
I’ve got all my love to give . . .
Shadows seen against the windowpanes. Their words muffled by the iron mesh.
And I’ll survive
I will survive.
The expressions on the women’s faces. Joy, pleasure, exhilaration. The faces she was beginning to sort out and differentiate, assigning them names and histories. Patty,
Tina, Lisa, Molly, Denise, Bridget, Theresa. Who now looked over to where she leaned against the wall, laughing out loud, clapping in time. Stamping her feet on the asphalt. Singing along with
them.
And they held out their hands to her and sealed her into their circle. The vibrations shook her throat and diaphragm as she shouted as loudly as the rest. And they stamped and roared as one
voice and swung their arms backwards and forwards, until the screws came through the meshed gates. Five, maybe six of them in a group, shouting at them.
Break it up.
Quieten it down.
Come on.
Inside now.
It’s tea time.
And Rachel watched the way the women opened their circle, then closed it again around the screws, singing more and more loudly, while the men’s faces pressed against the bars of the
windows that looked down on them, singing too, chanting out the words, their voices low, resonant, ferocious, beautiful.
And the circle got tighter and tighter, pushing in closer, trapping the screws, so they began to twist and turn, this way and that, suddenly small and defenceless, just women like their
prisoners, their uniforms meaning nothing, their fear plain to see. As the volume of the singing rose even louder and the chanting from the men above became less and less musical, more and more
staccato.
She felt it there, for the first time on that dull, blowy afternoon in the exercise yard. The charge of energy when the group forms, becomes a mass and realizes its power. She watched the
women’s bodies. They were growing, changing shape, there in front of her. And the officers could see it too. They knew what was happening. They stepped this way and that, their faces pale,
their attitude defensive. She could see the way they were trying to catch the attention of individuals, break them from the group, calling out their names.
Hey, Jackie, Tina, Molly. Hey, Theresa. Hey, I’m talking to you. Hey, calm it down. Break it up, or else.
Or else? Or else what, she wondered as she watched. These women were beyond
or else
. And everyone out there knew it. So she waited, tense and expectant, not sure what came next. Asking
herself, What will I do? Where do I stand? Her hands clenching into fists, the muscles in her legs tightening.
And then, suddenly, it had ended, as quickly as it had begun. The women made the decision. They had had their fun. They knew there was nothing further to be gained, so they unlinked their arms
and moved apart. They stopped singing and they walked quietly back inside. She smiled as she followed them indoors on that dull, blowy afternoon, hearing the jeers and catcalls of the men who
watched. They wouldn’t have walked away from it. They would have taken it to the limit. But they would have been beaten. This way, she thought, the women had it all. They’d flexed their
muscles. They’d shown their power. And they’d do it again. Singly, collectively, one way or the other. It was always there. A choice. A possibility. Never to be forgotten. Ever.
She had asked to see the psychologist. She had faith then. Back at the beginning. Faith in her own kind. Reasonable people with education and understanding.
Why?
The response was polite but disinterested.
I need help.
Really?
She had waited. They were short-staffed. There was a list. Her name was added to the bottom. The day came. She had prepared what she would say. She had practised the words, remembered the
vocabulary.
Look, I shouldn’t be here. I’m not violent or dangerous. This is a mistake. I didn’t kill my husband. It wasn’t me. Yes, we had a row. Yes, I was angry. But I
didn’t kill him. Please, don’t you see? I’m not a psychopath, a sociopath, someone like that. Don’t you see that I shouldn’t be here?
The psychologist’s report had stressed her state of denial, her inability to accept responsibility for her actions, her lack of remorse.
She waited to see what would happen. Time passed. She asked to see the Governor.
Surely
, she said,
surely the psychologist has told you that I am innocent. That I didn’t do this. That I shouldn’t be here.
Rachel.
The Governor’s voice was kind, concerned.
Rachel, I don’t think you quite understand what this is all about. You have been tried by a court of law. You have been
found guilty by a jury of your peers. You have been sentenced to life imprisonment. That is the only reality. Anything else is the stuff of dreams.
It was a long time before she willingly went to see another expert. There were duty calls that had to be made. And sometimes they made her laugh, the students, sent on work experience or
placement, so serious, so concerned. The do-gooders who thought they could relieve her burden of guilt. The priests and nuns who came to offer succour. She’d smile at them all and imagine the
conversations they’d have when they went home.
You’ll never guess who I met today.
Do you remember her?
Yes, that’s right, the one who shot her husband.
Life sentence, that’s what she got.
Nice? Oh, she’s lovely. Very polite, well spoken. You’d never guess, ever.
It was boredom really that made her go the last time, and the recommendation from the others.
You should see this one, Rachel
, they all said.
He’s different. He’s nice.
He was older than the rest. Just doing a locum, he told her, filling in for a while, needed a few bob. He looked through her file. She watched him. He looked tired, ill. His clothes were shabby.
He was a smoker, nicotine stains on his fingers, yellow marks on his teeth. He slowly turned over the pages, then he looked up and held her gaze.
The time has come
, he said,
for you to admit your crime. You’ve been here for too long for your own good. Your sentence was reviewed after seven years by the Sentence Review
Group. It was reviewed the following year and the year after that. They decided against probation. And do you know why?
She nodded.
Of course you do. You’re not stupid. But you’re too clever to be here still. Next time you’re looking in the mirror think about what you see. Think about the lines on your
face, the grey in your hair and the wrinkles on your hands. Think for once about your future. Then ask to see the Governor. Tell him you’re ready to accept responsibility for killing your
husband. You’re ready to admit your guilt and that you now feel genuine remorse. And as you say the words they will transform you. They will make you worthy of pity and redemption. And maybe
not tomorrow or the next day or the next, but some day in the still-to-come, those words will release you. Now go away and think about what I have said.
The Governor had sent for her. Told her he had good news. That the Sentence Review Group had made a recommendation. She was to be made ready for temporary release. Or perhaps
she should think of it as release on licence.
You understand, don’t you, Rachel? Your life sentence will always remain. But if you behave yourself, follow the rules, you will be able to live once again as others. Well, almost as
others.
She was to learn how to shop and cook, handle money, use public transport, pay bills, look after herself once again. That twelve years after surrendering her life to the institutions of the
State, they had now decided to return it to her.
Did she want it? She lay on her bed at night, securely locked in, and let her eyes wander over the familiar marks on the walls and stains on the ceiling. She had been in this same cell for nine
years, eleven months and two days. It was on the top landing, in the corner nearest the road. Not that she could see beyond the walls during the day. But at night it was different. At night she
could see the lights of the airport, and the planes as they landed and took off. By day they were insignificant smudges, an occasional flash as sunlight glanced off a metal wing or superstructure.
But at night she could follow with her eyes their lights as they rose through the air, up and up and up. And she could go with them. To London or New York. To Paris or Rome. To all those cities she
had once visited, all those years ago. And she would summon up from her memory, the names of the streets, the buildings she had studied, analysed, wondered about, admired, and she could smell the
air, feel the warmth of the sun on her arms, the light dazzling her eyes. Now she stood and went to the window, pushing it open through the bars as far as it would go. It was cold, but she
didn’t care. She raised her eyes to the blue-black sky. The moon was in its dying phase. She could clearly see the Copernicus crater and the crater named after Kepler. Martin had loved the
moon. He had shown her through his binoculars the seas and craters and named them for her.
One of the things that fascinates me about it
, he had said,
is the way it’s always there, even during the day. You can’t see it because of the light from the sun, but
it’s always out there, waiting till night comes, and then it can reveal its face again. It’s the way a good surveillance officer should be. So carefully concealed and camouflaged that
none of the people you’re watching can see you, until you want them to.
He had said it to her in the days when he still talked to her, shared his work with her. Told her everything.
Jackie the probation officer, the one she had known the longest, said to her today,
You must have some friends, some family, someone you can re-establish contact with. You’re going to
need them now, when you’re out. It’s very hard to get by on your own. I know you’ve been lonely in here but loneliness on the outside is a completely different kettle of
fish.
Had she been lonely in here? She tried to remember, to compare the way she felt now with what had gone before. All around her she heard voices. Women’s voices. She knew them all, their
names, their ages, their crimes. She had sat with them in the dust of the yard and listened as they told the stories of their lives. She had told them stories too, the stories her mother had read
to her when she was a child, which she in turn had passed on to her own daughter. The Princess and the Frog, the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Beauty and the Beast, Bluebeard, the Princess and the
Pea. She watched how their faces softened and their eyes closed as they lolled against each other and dreamed. Now she heard them calling out through their windows to the men behind the grey walls
of the prison across the yard. Brothers, boyfriends, husbands. Men she had come to know through the letters she had helped their women write. Puzzling over the words, fingers clumsy with biro or
pencil.
Dear Johnny, I love you. I can’t wait to get out of this kip and be with you again.
Dear Mikey, how’s it going? Are you any better? Are you going to the hospital and taking your tablets like I told you?
Dear Pat, I’m sending you all my kisses and hugs. I miss you. Do you miss me?
Are you listening?
The women shouted now.
Are you listening?
Sometimes she felt like joining in, even though she had no one of her own behind the barred windows opposite. But sometimes she just wanted to hear the sound of her own voice, calling out,
waiting for an answer.
Who would she call to now?
Are you listening, outside world? I’m coming back. Are you listening?
She had asked them if she could have a map of the city, the biggest they could find. The assistant chief officer, a middle-aged man called Dave Brady, brought one in from his
car and held it out to her.
Here, Rachel, you can have this
, he said and smiled. He had a lovely smile. Genuine and kind. He was a favourite with the women. They teased him and slagged him off. And he just shrugged
and laughed, and let it roll all over his lanky frame and greying hair.
When she put the map’s shiny cardboard cover to her nose, she could smell wax or polish, dust, a faint tinge of petrol. It was tacky, clinging to her fingers. She smelled again. Lollipop,
maybe. Wine gums, possibly. Mr Brady was always talking about his kids. They were nearly grown up now. Two at university, and the oldest was working in Silicon Valley in California. So Mr Brady
said. Rachel couldn’t imagine a place with a name like that. She could barely imagine California. Or even Dublin, for that matter. Now.
That was why she wanted the map. She opened it out fully and stuck it to her wall with Blu-tack, pressing her thumb hard down, feeling the surface of the stiff paper smooth against the rough
plaster beneath. Then she sat back on her bed and looked at it. Her whole life was contained within its boundaries. Everything of importance that had ever happened to her had happened within its
confines. She stood up and peered at the criss-crossing rows of streets. She found the hospital where she was born, the house in which she had lived as a child. She picked out her school, the
university where she had studied architecture, the crooked arms of the harbour at Dun Laoghaire where she had learned to sail. She saw the places she had gone with Martin, the church in which they
had married, the arc of the cul-de-sac where once they had lived. Where he had died, and she had grieved for him.
For years now she had refused to think of what lay beyond the prison. She had imagined herself in a desert or a forest. Isolated, depopulated, living outside the limits of time and space. There
was nothing real out there, especially since she had stopped going to see Amy. Even to think of her name made her feel sick. She pushed the memory back, deep down, hidden where it could do her no
harm. And she looked again at the map and picked a red felt pen out of the jar on her little table. She began to mark the map with small round dots. Red was for everything connected with her
punishment. She found the prison and outlined it first, then coloured it in so it was unmistakable. She picked out the Garda station in which she had been questioned, the Four Courts where she had
been sentenced. She found the Department of Justice and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Somewhere in those buildings were all the files that related to her and her case. She
could imagine the filing cabinet and the buff-coloured folders. They had refused her leave to appeal. They had sentenced her to life. She wondered who they were, those men and women who had made
all those decisions. Did they think about her now, remember who she was? She supposed they did not.